


Wear the Sky

by Duvessa



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist!Steve, M/M, Nude Modeling, Nude Photos, Tony's a lawyer in this one, artist!Bucky, it's all in the name of art, mention of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-14 04:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11200755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duvessa/pseuds/Duvessa
Summary: Back at Sam’s place, Steve pulled up Renoir’sDance at Bougivalon his laptop and once again pictured Bucky as the dancer. He wondered with what kind of expression the man was looking at the woman, how Renoir had pictured the couple together. He imagined if there was affection in his eyes or rather desire and longing and he envisioned Bucky looking at him like that, with his grey, stormy eyes hidden under the brim for only him to see.Steve closed his laptop and went to the bathroom to take out his contact lenses. It was done anyway. He would never see him again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissyPJ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissyPJ/gifts).



> Part of me can't believe I'm posting this. If it hadn't been for the RBB (and a deadline) I'd probably never have finished anything ever.  
>   
> A huge thank you goes to the inspiring artist [misspaperjoker](https://misspaperjoker.tumblr.com), who has not only been patient with me, but has also offered invaluable advice as she was willing to answer the three million questions I had about art and what it’s like to be an artist in the real world. Make sure to check out her [art](https://misspaperjoker.tumblr.com/post/162016953304/this-is-my-second-contribution-to-the).  
> Thank you, Athena Greene, for beta reading this whole thing on such short notice. You saved me.  
>   
> Finishing a story feels like a major achievement. So here goes nothing.  
>   
> 

“That was … heroic.“

“And emotional.“

“Did you cry? Oh my god. You were totally about to cry.”

“Shut up, Nat.”

The redhead laughed as she threw a single popcorn at the man next to her. With her long feet draped over Clint’s lap, there was nowhere for him to hide from her vicious attack. With the credits rolling over the screen of their television Bucky stretched his feet, sore from sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back leaning against the sofa.

Natasha was sprawled on the sofa, her long legs across the couch and her ankles covered with the warm hand of their now common friend, who had (somewhere between the heroes first capture and their prison break) started massaging Natasha’s feet. In the redhead’s lap was a dark haired feline curled up in a silky, fluffy ball. She handed the almost empty bowl of popcorn she had been balancing on the edge of the sofa to Bucky, who took the hint and put it on the cramped coffee table.

“You’re a sucker for emotional moments. When they’re about to die, even when they’re _trees_. You sap.” As she was busy making fun of the blond man on their couch, Bucky checked his phone. There was a missed call and his stomach instantly did the awful kind of backflip, but the screen showed an unknown number instead of his father’s name.

They had called about an hour ago but his phone had been on mute. Usually, only Nat or his dad called him. When they did it was either because Bucky should pick up something from the store the redhead shouldn’t be eating given her strict ballerina-diet, or it meant his father was calling with no update whatsoever on his sister. Those conversation usually ended with him asking about Bucky’s issues, which was something he’d rather not discuss. At least not with his father and not when he was talking to a therapist twice a week anyway.

It had taken the therapist five solid weeks to get Bucky to open up, what could, given the fact he sometimes forgot what he had been doing only a few minutes ago, be considered an achievement.

Everything was a mess. Which was why he was sitting in the living room in a long sleeved top and sweating his ass off, because he couldn’t stand the thought of exposing the scars on his left arm, which were fresh and raw and red and angry-looking. They were a reminder to what had happened, a reminder what he had done, because sometimes he still needed to be reminded, because he still forgot.

“Hey”, Nat nudged his shoulder softly with her knee. “What’s up?”

Bucky looked at her warily. “Someone called.”

“Well, then call them back,” she offered innocently.

Bucky hesitated for a second. “It’s late.”

“It’s not even ten.”

Bucky shot her a look.

“Jeez, we’re students. You’re a student looking for a student. Which student in his right mind is asleep at ten p.m. on a Friday night? We’ll rewatch the after credit scene for you. Off you go!” Natasha ushered him up and out of the room as she got up herself, earning an angry hiss from their black-furred master.

They would have rewatched the credit scene anyway.

Bucky looked miserable as he made his way into his room. He was not in the mood for another model feeling obligated to ask questions about why he was wearing long sleeves in what was one the hottest summers of the last century in New York as soon as she was in his apartment. Models always wanted to talk, because they felt weird and uneasy just standing there and posing (which was what they were paid to do). Natasha had, at some point, offered her opinion that their uneasiness might have something to do with him brooding in a corner while drawing, but Bucky had declared her thesis to be bullshit.

Bucky had wanted to give up on looking for models and had begged Natasha to pose for him again, just one last time. As the good friend and roommate she was she had outright refused him and told him that he should get his depressed ass off her couch and go find himself a model. Something he then had refused. Which had somehow ended up in them finishing off the vodka Natasha had brought from her last trip to Russia, before she had tricked him into agreeing to try one more time anyway.

backpedal. He had already torn down about a dozen of them and yet his phone was still buzzing at least once a day with willing women calling to lose their clothing in the name of art. It was tiring and annoying and he hated himself for agreeing to this sort of thing. At the same time, he was stunned how many women actually called (though a lot of them asked about three times if there really was payment involved) and that he actually had managed to get a very decent piece done with the help of Coleen, a brunette music student that had agreed (or rather insisted) to pose completely naked with her violin for him. There were also many more females asking if he was up for coffee or a drink. Coleen had even asked him for dinner.

Bucky however, didn’t swing that way. He found his head turned by the masculine end of the gender spectrum. Natasha was well aware of the fact, which was why she was throwing females his way, because _sorry, but I prefer dick_ cancelled out the possibility of Bucky hooking up with his models. No woman enjoyed hearing that their innuendo was not remembered, even if Bucky had the attest to prove it.

As Bucky shut the door to his room he had to pause for a moment. Leaning against the door he closed his eyes and stood there, listening to the muffled voices of the living room, and breathing in the scent of dried paint and wet canvas. Bucky was just so tired of acting like everything was well. Because it sure as hell wasn’t.

\- - -

“So.” The lawyer looked at the young blond with warm eyes as the young man finally exited from his boss’ office. “How did he take it?”

“I’ll live.” Steve buried his hands in the pockets of his ill-fitting trousers as he hunched up his shoulders. Everything was ill-fitting, because he was too skinny. The legs of his pants, which hung too low on his bony hips, always seemed to be too loose. His t-shirts looked as if they were a size too big as well. He was used to looking like that.

A tad too pale to look healthy.

A tad too skinny to look like he was eating regularly.

Right now he looked … awful. He hadn’t liked his appearance too much on a good day but these days he looked skinnier and more pale than usual. When you lost your appetite when you were a bad eater anyway, it didn’t make things particularly better.

“Is that a yes? Or a no? Do you need me to talk to him? I’ll go talk to him!”

Steve finally looked up, shaking his head as the lawyer had turned on his heels, ready to burst into the office Steve just had retreated from. “No, it’s okay. Really. He- he took it well. Said I should take my time. Figure things out. Talk to him if I needed help. We even talked to the director of the academy, they also gave their okay.”

“Well, grand! So what’s with the long face, buddy?” Foggy Nelson was a lawyer with a good heart. Which was why he was absolutely working in the wrong firm or the wrong job.

The problem wasn’t that the court had assigned him a trustee after his mother’s death, due to the fact that his mother had asked for one in her will. His trustee had even said that it was okay if Steve wanted to take a semester off to grieve and sort things out, had ensured Steve that the needed funds would be available to him as long as the amount spent was reasonable. The problem wasn’t that the academy understood completely, even assured him that there would be a free spot for him next semester.

The problem was that everyone around him treated him like he was made of friggin’ glass. Like he was some fragile thing that was about to break.

The problem was that everyone tread around him so careful that he couldn’t grieve. He couldn’t cry his eyes out while sobbing violently or yell and throw things – like he felt doing when he didn’t feel numb inside – because they would lose it. They would freak out. Again.

If Steve gave into it, they would stick him into a mental hospital. They already made him go and see that psychiatrist because he had had a panic attack at his mother’s funeral. Even though he had told his now trustee, his trustee’s lawyer staff and his friends that he was fine. As fine as one could be when becoming an orphan at age 20.

The problem was that his mother was dead and all he wanted to do was for the pain to stop suffocating him slowly and for them to stop asking him if he was okay.

He was tired of acting like he was.

“Nothing. I’m just tired,” Steve answered honestly.

“Well”, Foggy Nelson wrapped his arm around the little fella and directed him towards the elevator opposite the front desk of the law firm, “I’m gonna buy you a strawberry milkshake anyway. Because you’re too young for the good stuff. And I am a lawyer. A lawyer at the firm of your custodian. But milkshakes work too. At least for you. I’ll probably need a drink. A grown up drink.” The elevator announced its presence with a loud _Pling_. “You look like hell, man.”

\- - -

“Oh come on.” Tony Stark made sounding annoyed a form of art. The number of different ways he could sound annoyed or make annoyed gestures was too damn high. He always sounded like he felt personally offended, even though Steve knew by now that it was nothing personal. It was Tony’s default setting. He was wondering how Stark had managed to win any case with this personality of his. Ever.

“You’re young. I get it, mommy is dead. But you have to live a little. A little,” he quickly added as if remembering what his role in this scenario really was. “Not too much. If you go astray and wander over to the – you know – dark side of things with drugs, prostitution and underage drinking, the court will have my ass.”

Steve shot him an annoyed look. “Sure, because that’s totally in my nature.”

“That’s what they all say. But I actually believe you when you say you’re all good. Which is unsettling. You’re a student. Act like one.”

“I am, Mr. Stark”, he said, pointing at the closed doors of the office they just had left.

“Tony”, he corrected Steve casually – once again – as he stopped in his track to face his assigned protégé. Stark’s warm hands were on Steve’s bony shoulders and the look in the lawyer’s eyes was sincere. “No, son. _You_ are acting like an adult, as where _you_ should be acting like a young man, who has a couple of months in his still not all too grown up life to do all those things all the other young people dream off. Sleep in. Go to parties. Do stupid things. Experience!”

Stark looked as if he considered something hard. “At least nothing too extreme. And if you do, don’t let me know. And don’t let Pepper know. But live! I know it’s hard and it sucks. But your mother wouldn’t have wanted you to miss out on the good stuff. So let’s get going because I’m not really comfortable with all this emotional jabber.”

Stark turned away and started walking along the hallway. With slouched shoulders Steve stood there for a moment, his eyes closed as he sighed heavily. Steve was so done. Tired. He shouldn’t have mentioned to Foggy that he couldn’t really see himself drawing anymore. Ever. Foggy then had told _him_. His boss. Stark. Who now felt obligated to do the right thing, because apparently, the man was a good guy at heart, no matter his reputation.

As Steve made his way to follow Tony, his eyes fell onto the blackboard that hung on the hallway’s wall. “Look at that.” The mock cheer in Steve’s voice made Tony stop in his tracks. “Art student. Looking for a model. Brilliant.” Steve’s eyes darted over the flyer which had been written by hand and copied.

Even though Steve wasn’t looking in Stark’s direction he could basically feel his eyebrows going upwards. Well, Stark wanted him to live a little. “Anatomy study. Private session. No nudity required.” Then Stark had to watch in horror as Steve tore down the whole goddamn flyer instead of just ripping of a single strip of paper with what would be a cell phone number. “Me, naked and being paid for it. Say, _Tony_ , is that prostitution?” Even though Steve phrased it as a question, he didn’t wait for Stark’s response. “Great. Didn’t think so.”

Steve all but stalked past Stark, paper crumbled in his fist.

“There you go, young padawan.” Tony called after him, though in the car he couldn’t help but ask, “It’s not really prostitution, is it?”

“It totally is,” Steve deadpanned.

Tony Stark wasn’t someone you would want near your children. At least not if you had a stick up your ass and were holding grudges.

Tony had had a reputation as a playboy, but that had been before one Pepper Potts had come along and strung him down. He was known to be ruthless, but only because he had to take down his dead old man’s business partner, as said partner had attempted to get Stark junior disbarred as a lawyer on the base of false pretenses.

Ever since Stark did his one man show he was killing it in court. He was the successful kind of lawyer. So successful that the firm was literally only carrying his name. There was only a _& partner_ because it looked better on the huge wall of the lobby in his building, at least that was what Foggy had told Steve.

The whole reason Steve had ended up in Anthony Edward “Tony” Stark’s law firm a couple of month ago, dressed in a suit that was a size too big for him, listening how the infamous Tony Stark had presented his mother’s last will to him was because Stark’s now fiancée had been friends with his mother as they had been in college together. When Steve’s mother, Sarah Rogers, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Sarah had made sure that Steve would be taken care of. That he, no matter how old he would be when his mother would pass, would not end up with a trustee that would embezzle the money Steve had inherited from his father’s side of the family a couple of years ago. So she had reached out to her old friend Virginia “Pepper” Potts.

Steve had not known Pepper for very long. He only knew her from the few stories his mother had told him about her from their time in college and from her visits at the hospital.

Pepper had invited Steve to come by their place whenever he felt the need for it after the funeral and no matter how much Steve appreciated the gesture, he hadn’t taken Pepper up on it. At least not by his own choice because other than the loose friendship between her and his mother there was nothing connecting him to her. Pepper was a memory connected to his mother, a wound that felt to fresh and too raw to be prodded.

After the reading of his mother’s last will and the court order, making Tony Stark his trustee until Steve was 25, Stark had asked if Steve was doing alright, that Pepper would love to have him over for dinner the following weekend and if he had a place to stay. Pepper Potts was a strawberry blonde woman and was, in his opinion, the material heroines were made of.

Steve had shown up for two dinners and one lunch Pepper had stubbornly insisted on to show his good will. After all one of them was a loving and caring person with strawberry blond hair, looking out for her old friends son, and the other one was the guy with the money that would pay his tuition.

Steve had drawn Pepper a couple of times as he had been sitting in the waiting room at the hospital, where he had watched her and his mother. Pepper was strong willed, independent, kind and the only one he had seen bringing Tony Stark to his knees. Which was kind of an impressive thing to witness.

Steve had then answered that he had, indeed, a place to stay.

After his mother had become an in-patient due to her organs starting to fail, he had moved out from the apartment he had grown up in. Steve hadn’t been able to see his mother fade away in the hospital, only to come home and stay in a place where everything smelled like her - or how she used to smell. Like flowers and sunshine. Sweet and warm. The stuff rainbows probably smelt like. Like home.

Steve had crashed with a friend, Sam, a psychology-major living in Brooklyn, whose couch he was still occupying. Steve had met the guy in a comic store before he had been leaving New York to go to this fancy art academy he and his mum suddenly had been able to afford.

He and Sam had been friends ever since they had agreed that cancelling Firefly was inexcusable.

All things considered Tony Stark was a good trustee and an even better person.


	2. Chapter 2

It was 9.42 p.m. on a Friday night when the phone rang. Here he was, miserable and hoping that he would have gotten away with it after the artist hadn’t picked up at first.

Art. Art was his thing, he reminded himself. It was his passion. Which was the only reason why he had called the number on the very uncommonly phrased flyer. Steve was not sure if he really did it in order to try to reconnect with his passion, or if he had done it only to spite Stark. Which would be a childish and stubborn thing to do. It was solemnly about reconnecting with art. Totally.

Which was why when Steve picked up the phone, he stared at the number that was showing on the display for a heartbeat before finally answered the call. With his other hand, he muted the television before tossing the remote on Sam’s couch.

“Hello?” His voice sounded hoarse in his own ears and he cleared his throat, missing the first words of the artist on the other line and not catching their name.

No matter how cool Steve wanted to play this, this was – given the curvy and beautiful handwriting on the flyer – most likely a female on the other side of the line, which was why his pulse was skyrocketing and his palms were sweaty. Steve was not a particularly shy person, but this was about getting naked…

“Hello?” He repeated himself as there was silence.

“Uhm. Hi,” the artist repeated. The artist sounded male. The male version of male. The male version of male which most likely did not only have an Adam's apple, but also a dick.

There was silence, again. The awkward type of silence. Steve felt the heat of a flush wash over him.

“You called?”

“Yeah, I- sorry. I must have the wrong number, sorry to-“

But then the husky male voice on the other end of the line interrupted Steve. “Were you calling for the ad? The- the modelling ad?” Steve really liked the sound of the stranger’s voice.

“Uh, yeah. I- I guess I’m.” This was … weird. There was a guy on the phone. A guy. Steve closed his eyes and tried to calm his nerves. Then again, men could also have impeccable handwriting.

“Okay. Good.” There was a small pause as if the _male_ artist was thinking. Steve picked up the snippet of paper from the coffee table in Sam’s living room. The digits were written in a curvy font, evenly, with, what he could tell, a very steady and skilled hand and with even pressure. “This will work too,” the stranger then mumbled. “So, when are you free?”

Steve was about to say _everyday_ , but thought better of it. “Sunday would be good. Or during the week if this works better for you.”

“No, Sunday’s fine. I live in Brooklyn. I hope that’s not a problem. I’ll text you the address, there is a subway close by. Does early afternoon work for you? It’s … it’s when I have the best light.”

Steve stood in Sam’s living room, staring at a piece of paper, asking himself why he even had called that number in the first place. Then he looked up and saw Sam sitting at the kitchen counter moving his hands in an encouraging gesture and Steve remembered. He did it for them because they wanted to help him. If Steve did their bidding, then maybe they would get get off his back, and who knew, maybe this whole reconnecting with his passion thing would really work. “Yeah, no. That’s fine. Text me the address and I will meet you there.”

After they hung up, Steve stood in the middle of the room feeling weird and surreal. He knew the drill, knew how those things worked since he had been- since he _was_ \- an art student as well. Still, he felt weirdly disconnected from his body, but that was just his lack of sleep catching up.

The television ran on mute, playing the episode of The West Wing they had been watching.

“How did she sound?”

Steve still felt the blush lingering on his fair skin. “Like a she-male.” Sam looked as staggered as he felt. Then the phone chirped happily in his hand offering an address in Brooklyn and a name, which would most likely be the last name written on the doorbell. “Like a hot, Russian she-male,” Steve added and looked up in shock.

How was the beautifully-writing female artist a hot sounding dude from Moscow?

Sam burst out laughing. “Dude, you look like the he-she is going to maim you. Come here. Have a beer with me. Help me finish this pizza. And bring the remote!” he added as Steve was halfway back to the counter where they had been sitting and listening to political anecdotes while they were making their way through a pepperoni pizza from José’s. Or rather Sam had been making his way through the pizza as Steve had been chewing on the very same piece for forever.

After watching Steve picking at his cold slice he asked, “Did he sound creepy?”

“What?” Steve asked as he looked up, blushing all over again. “No. No! But-“ he sighed heavily and leant back in his chair as he folded his hands in his lap. “I don’t know if I want to do this.”

“Well, listen up, buddy.” Sam went into his serious mode. The kind of _I’m your friend so I will try not to psych-evaluate you, like the masters have taught me to, so behave_ \- serious. “You give me his phone number, his name, his address and a time. If you don’t call by then, I will come and get you.”

“What if he holds a gun to my head and makes me call you because he is a trained Russian spy and knows,” Steve deadpanned. He wasn’t afraid of being abducted and sold into slavery. Art students weren’t criminals.

“Then we’ll agree on a code-word.”

“What if he tortures me and makes me tell him the code-word?”

Sam blinked at him. Hard.

“Okay, fine,” Steve finally caved, throwing his hands in the air in defeat. “I admit. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to see people. There. I said it. Happy?”

“Yeah. Actually, I am. Now eat your pizza or I will tell José you don’t like his shit anymore.” José was in fact their favorite pizza joint where the staff already knew their names and favorite dishes and the delivery guys their address by heart.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me, sucker. Now eat. Don’t you, like, know how it is anyway? You always complained to me about how your models kept talking to you about nonsense whenever you needed someone to do reference poses for you in private.” Sam was right. Steve knew exactly how annoying it could be, when the models had been talking about traveling or love and relationships or had been going on for forever about how amazing they thought that art could actually pay the bills. Because travelling had not been in his cards as his mom had raised him by herself with no financial support, Steve had been sick as a child most of the time anyway. And Art, well, art rarely paid the bills, especially not when you were still a student. Art was about passion and passion only paid the bills when you were really lucky or insanely talented - preferably both.

Of course, there had also been those models which were easy to talk to, those had been fun to be around, but those weren’t the ones Steve had been complaining about to Sam. “And maybe your fairy godfather is right and this does help you to reconnect with art.”

On the other side of Brooklyn Bucky was staring at his phone, wondering why he had agreed to a male model when his concept was clearly based on a female one. His eyes wandered to one of the copies of Natasha’s ad he had torn down from a tree on campus. It clearly said that the model should preferably be _delicate_. He wanted to make the excuse that he hadn’t been quite sure what kind of attributes the model should have, but his mind had been clear and his memory had worked perfectly fine.

Perhaps he only had agreed to the male model because of the listed requirements, he mused as he was staring at the wrinkled copy of the ad some more. Or, perhaps, he just wanted to rub in Natasha’s face that he could pull a perfect interpretation of one of Degas’ pictures without her posing as his ballerina-muse.

All things considered, he couldn’t blame this one on his untrustworthy brain.

\- - -

The guy called Romanoff had buzzed him up and opened the apartment door on the second floor. Steve had been star struck.

The Russian was gorgeous, to say the least. He was as hot as he had sounded on the phone and as good-looking as his handwriting had suggested. Even though Steve had no idea where or who came up with comparing looks.

His almost chin-long brown hair was a tousled mess as if he had just gotten out of bed or had been busy pulling at it throughout the morning. Even though the heat of early summer day tortured the New York people, the artist was wearing a white long-sleeved t-shirt that had a suspiciously looking coffee stain on its hem and with only one sleeve pushed back to his elbow. Which looked kind of weird, but not weird enough to tarnish his good looks. It also was wrinkled, as if he had slept in it. There were bags under his eyes, suggesting he had been out late last night. So maybe he had.

There was a cleft on his chin and he sported a slight stubble. Steve still could tell that those high cheekbones and the clear-cut jaw would break a millions ladies hearts, if he hadn’t had done so already, though there was still this softness of youth in his features. If Steve would have been a sculptor rather than a painter, he would have wanted to form a block of marble in that guy’s shape. Because, damn.

As _Romanoff_ invited him inside, Steve tried not to see how the t-shirt hugged his torso in all the right places. The guy was a head taller than Steve, with broad shoulders he really wanted to get his hands on, and piercing grey eyes. Crap. “Can I offer you something to drink?” The stranger sounded even hotter in person. His voice husky and just the right amount of rough.

“No thanks. I’m Steve by the way.” They hadn’t introduced each other on the phone two days ago. Steve didn’t offer his hand.

“Oh yeah. Sorry. Manners. Call me Bucky.” Bucky gestured towards the cramped living room as he closed the door. “Sorry for the mess. We had a late night yesterday and I kind of … didn’t manage to clean up.” There were clothes on the backrest of the couch as if someone had changed quickly and abandoned them there, though there were no signs of an in-house party. Bucky was apparently the type who enjoyed having parties in clubs or bars. The shoes next to the apartment door were not lined up neatly next to their significant other as Steve’s own roommate liked to do. There were women’s shoes as well. Steve guessed a girlfriend or a roommate. Considering Bucky’s looks, he opted for a girlfriend.

On the coat rack hung a couple of different jackets and coats. Steve could spot a woman’s coat there as well as a leather jacket, which he assumed belonged to Bucky. So maybe a roommate after all.

On the coffee table in the living room that the front door opened into, were sketches and art supplies strewn across. Brushes and charcoal, pencils and acrylic tubes. An easel was placed next to one of the two grand windows which had those deep alcoves you could snuggle up on and read. Given the pillows on one of them, someone apparently did. The easel looked well-used and ancient. No one really had one of those things anymore.

On the other window sill, there was a mess of more art supplies, sloppily stacked sketchbooks and pads, piled up boxes of pigments and more brushes. Outside one of the windows, Steve could spot a fire escape and what he supposed were the remainders of house plants. It was a crime scene out there.

Bucky followed his gaze. “They didn’t suffer too much. We just sort of forgot to water them. So we put them out there and then the wind knocked the palm tree over,” he offered with an even tone as he collected the clothes from the couch and threw them into one of the rooms. Literally. A belt buckle that supposedly was looped through the waistband of the jeans made a disapproving sound as it hit the floor.

Steve nodded absentmindedly to no one in particular as he took the room in further and shrugged off his jacket before hanging it on the coat rack. Then he turned to study the stranger some more. Bucky was wearing soft worn jeans that hung low on his hips, which did wonderful things to his ass. He was barefoot not wearing anything beneath his Henley, the fabric was thin enough that the outlines would give the extra layer of clothing away, although there was something wrapped around his left biceps. Bandages, Steve guessed. Steve’s gaze snapped back to Bucky’s face as the artist turned around and crossed the small hallway back into the living room.

“So,” Steve started hesitatingly, “where do you want me?”

Bucky looked him over then, arching an eyebrow as Steve got right down to business. Steve felt heat crawl up his neck, bringing a flush to his cheeks. They way those intense eyes gave him a once over made Steve awfully aware of his body. Although Steve had made his peace with the fact that he would never look anything like Bucky did – body toned beautifully from working out, broad shoulders and narrow hips - his body was nothing he liked being too aware of, which was another reason Sam had urged him to do this. It was all about comfort zone and leaving said zone behind.

This was so much worse than a hot female art-student because, with females, Steve could deal. Women tended not to feel threatened by him. On the contrary, they liked him, because he was small and bony and had, what Sam called, that constant look of adorableness. Like a cute, lost puppy. Women, therefore, did not usually feel attracted to him but genuinely liked him – Sam’s description of his _cuteness-factor_ had done wonders to his self-confidence. Not.

With his body a bit too skinny and with muscles refusing to build (and asthma, which made every cardio workout some kind of torture), the gay spectrum of men generally liked him. One of his ex-boyfriends had called him fair and delicate. Apparently, men also liked that in other men, not only in the female population.

He himself was fine with his appearance, although he would have appreciated if, given his history of illnesses that his eyesight at least was better, because without glasses or contacts, he was basically blind. Or if he had been gifted with a skin that would actually tan instead of turning red instantly and returning to a maddening shade of _too pale_. It made people fuss over his condition constantly, asking him if he felt okay or if he wanted to sit down. Steve would also appreciate it a lot if he could look like he was actually twenty years old. He still had to show his license when buying movie-tickets for a PG16 movie.

In general, he was absolutely fine with how things worked out for him, since Steve kind of swung both ways. He appreciated the human body in general. Steve loved studying the soft curves of female bodies and found himself also to enjoy the more defined lines of a masculine body. Though with his face being average at best, and him kind of becoming invisible in crowds, Steve hadn’t really given up on his love life … he had just paused it, for now. He had had a few awful dates to show so far and had also managed a couple of awkward, not really life-changing experiences when it came to sex and even had managed a full on relationship. Although said relationship had been short and based on misunderstandings. Steve was fine with how things were. Really, he was. Dating had never been too high on his list of priorities anyway.

The Russian guy, who had no accent whatsoever, cleared his throat, making Steve snap out from his thoughts, realizing in horror that he had been staring. He felt heat creeping up the back of his neck as the gorgeous male human being with a face Michelangelo would have abandoned his David for happily - Steve knew _he_ would have – pointed towards the sofa by the window. The cushioned piece of furniture was soaked in golden sunlight.

“Maybe we start with a few sketches,” Bucky offered.

Steve nodded and slid off his shoes as well before he made his way through the room towards the sofa. Next to the big dark-brown sofa, a stuffed bookshelf was cramped between the windows. The other side of the room held a small kitchen unit, which was hidden behind a corner and an ancient looking table with four mismatched chairs. Then there was a short hallway with three doors leading further into the apartment.

“You ever done this before?”

Steve was surprised that Bucky asked, but then again, Bucky didn’t know that Steve used to be the one doing the drawing. “No, not really.”

“Okay, so I’ll just need you for a couple of reference sketches, to get the details right later on,” Bucky explained patiently while making his way towards the window sill where most of his supplies were resting. “It is always easier when you have a template or model to work with, but you won’t have to stand around in the same pose forever. Just a couple of minutes max. So it won’t be anything like the monarchs you see in movies, sitting around for hours and not moving a muscle. If you feel uncomfortable or want to take a break, just say so.”

“I would like to do a few reference shots with my camera too, later on,” he added hesitantly. “We basically use photos a lot more than an actual model. They’re only for reference and private use. Pictures don’t get tired of holding their pose.” There was a shy smile tugging at his lips.

“Sure, works for me,” since Steve knew the drill he found himself agreeing easily. “What’s the assignment?” Bucky was collecting a sketchbook from the window sill and just turned to look for a pencil on the messy coffee table when he looked up in surprise as if he hadn’t thought that his model would show interest.

“Uhm,” he offered awkwardly, his eyes landing on a black notebook on the coffee table. A yellow post-it note was stuck on its cover. “A mix between Renoir and Degas.” Bucky then scowled. “And Turner. And … contrast.”

Steve raised his eyebrows. The mix was uncommon to say the least, but then again Steve had been studying in an academy and not in university, so maybe they did things differently there. The blond knew that Degas used to draw women, a lot. Mostly while exposed or when dancing. Renoir on the other hand loved landscapes and people alike, though mostly dressed. Turner was a goner for atmospheric scenes and breathtaking sunsets. Steve couldn’t really picture which kind of take Bucky would have on this and had no idea what Bucky would need from him as his model. It was easy to tap into his knowledge about history of art, it came almost naturally to him. Steve had spent more than enough hours remembering all the fact and details for his history classes.

While standing in the room awkwardly, Steve also remembered reading that his required state was of almost complete undress. He looked down at his dark-blue graphic tee and wondered if he should get over with it, but Bucky had not said anything about him losing his clothes yet and hadn’t pointed him to the bathroom.

The silence stretched on and Bucky somehow seemed as helpless as Steve felt. Then Steve’s eyes fell onto the sketches that were strewn across the coffee table showing the outlines of a ballerina in various poses. “Fine Arts?” Steve asked, just to fill the room with noise.

Bucky looked up as if surprised that the stranger in his apartment was speaking, or there at all.

“Do you study Fine Arts,” Steve clarified.

He watched as Bucky’s eyebrows drew together in concentration and Steve tried to tell himself that the guy was probably hungover and that Steve, in case the Russian student was a psycho, had given Sam the contact info. Steve’s eyes fell onto the apartment door. “If you want me to come back another time-“

“No,” Bucky hurriedly interrupted Steve before pausing and repeating the word calmer. “No. I’m just a bit-“ He took a deep breath and raked his right hand through his hair in a nervous gesture. So that was where his messy hair came from. The guy was a bundle of nerves even though Bucky had appeared to be quite at ease and confident when Steve had arrived. “Sorry,” Bucky then offered hesitantly, his shoulders hunched slightly. “Sometimes I do have a hard time focusing.” Bucky didn’t meet his eyes.

Steve took a calming breath. Trying to shove suspicion and awkwardness aside, even though the feeling that this would not help him at all to reconnect with his passion settled in his chest, he suddenly found himself determined to do this. Even if it would only serve the sole purpose to prove Sam wrong and to cross modelling off his nonexistent bucket-list.

“Fine Arts for a fine guy, huh?” Steve uttered, not prepared for the shy but genuine smile Bucky offered him. “Why don’t you tell me what you have in mind for your assignment so I know what you want me to do?”

“I’m not sure yet. I was initially planning on a subject Dernier preferred, a ballerina,” Bucky explained, obviously thinking that his model had no knowledge about art and why would he. “Which could still work with your build.” Steve could feel Bucky’s eyes burning through the thin layers of his clothes as the art student took his appearance in once more and somehow he didn’t even feel offended. “But my professor will probably kill me if I bring him another painting of my personal take on an Anna Pavlova.”

If Bucky didn’t know what he wanted to do in general, Steve really had no idea what to do with his body. Bucky seemed lost in thought for a brief moment, probably mulling over possible takes on the topic, as his grey eyes were focused on Steve’s flat chest.

“I do have a few ideas, but I would need you to, well, lose some of your clothes? The bathroom is over there, the first door on the right.”

While Steve undressed in the small but tidy bathroom, he heard Bucky walking around in the living room. He heard water running and the clinking sound of glasses. Steve felt lightheaded as he shed his socks and pants, a strange twinge of excitement rushing through him and a sense of self-awareness bringing color to his cheeks as he stood there, in a stranger’s bathroom, only dressed in his dark boxer briefs and looking at himself in the mirror. He took in his naked and hairless chest, his skin the ivory kind of pale, suddenly becoming aware of his skinny silhouette with his shoulders too bony and his arms too thin.

There was no turning back now. Steve’s mouth felt dry as he reached for the bathrobe, which hung on a hook behind the bathroom door, before pulling it on, not quite ready to get out there in an exposed state like that. It was soft to the touch and smelled like vanilla. Steve knew the drill, knew how it would go, though he only ever had done this with a pencil as a weapon and a pad to hide behind. He could suddenly relate to the nervous babbling and the poor attempts of some of his models in making conversation because modelling was kind of weird. Who knew that looking at things so familiar from different angles could hold so many insights.

When Steve emerged from the bathroom he found Bucky throwing a deep-red blanket over the sofa. The thin fabric of his Henley stretched over his upper arms and back as he was bent forwards to drape the blanket over the backrest in a way that created deep folds.

There were two glasses on the coffee table and a jug filled with water. The sunlight framed Bucky’s outlines illuminated his profile. As Bucky looked up, the golden light of the afternoon sun created the illusion of a halo. Bucky shot Steve a quick smile and took a step back to take in the setting he had created for, what Steve guessed, the reference shots. Bucky’s whole posture had changed completely in those minutes Steve had spent in the cramped bathroom. The look in Bucky’s grey eyes was focused and his shoulders were straightened. He held himself upright once again like he had when he had opened the door for Steve. Bucky was gnawing at his bottom lip and Steve felt intrigued by the aura of determination.

Bucky then picked up a digital camera from one of the boxes in the cramped bookshelf and put it on the coffee table, which he had moved closer to the television to create a free space in front of the sofa. It was no fancy device but a DSLR nonetheless. Bucky wasn’t paying attention to Steve, which, Steve guessed, served the sole purpose of giving him room and time to get familiar with the thought of stretching out on the sofa. Naked.

Steve watched Bucky flipping through the pages of his sketching pad before he looked up at Steve again and gestured for the blond to come closer. Feeling a bit too aware of himself Steve kept hovering at the edge of the sunlight that spilled into the room. Bucky shot him a reassuring smile from the other side of the light beam. It was supposed to be comforting but it didn’t reach those stormy grey eyes.

“We can start easy,” Bucky offered, mistaking Steve’s hesitation as insecurity. “Maybe a few sketches with you standing here? You can keep the robe.” His voice was calm and reassuring. Steve found himself moving easily as he stepped into the light. The sun traced warm and gentle kisses over the skin on his face and his naked legs. It felt like stepping onto a stage where the single headlight was focused onto him, bathing him in golden warmth.

“Turn a little to the right.” Steve did as instructed and turned towards the window, not quite sure what to do with his limbs as Bucky hadn’t offered any further directions. Bucky ran a hand over his face with an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry. I meant left. I keep mixing up sides.” He put the pad and his pencil down and crossed the distance between them to join Steve in the sunlight. “May I?”

Steve nodded his agreement. Bucky’s hands were a light touch on his shoulders. This close, Steve found Bucky’s eyes to be streaked with crystal blue. He smelled like coffee and a bit musky, as if he hadn’t showered in the morning and not at all as if he had been out last night, partying hard. Bucky turned Steve so that Bucky would look at his right side later on, before he lifted Steve’s arms a bit by placing his hands on his elbows. “Like you would be dancing.”

Bucky took a step back and looked Steve over, just as Steve wanted to ask if he was supposed to be dancing with an invisible partner or by himself. Apparently, Bucky hadn’t given up on his soft spot for portraying dancing characters and Steve felt the blush creeping onto his face once more. Bucky nodded approvingly and picked up the sketchbook before he sat down on a chair he had put next to the television.

“Steve, right?”

“Yeah.”

Bucky scribbled something down in the corner of the page. It appeared to just be a single word, Steve guessed Bucky was writing down his name. Then Bucky looked up and began sketching. “Could you lower your head just a – perfect.”

Steve tried to picture what Bucky had in mind as he tipped his chin lower slightly, tried to picture what he would come up with given the rather curious assignment. The _Dance of Bougival_ came to mind and he imagined Bucky as the lady in Renoir’s picture. Or as the gal, since he could not really picture Bucky in a white, flowing dress. But his jaw and the line of his nose would fit perfectly under that hat.

Bucky kept sketching in silence and asked Steve occasionally to slightly change his posture. The poses were easy to hold and not too dynamic. Whatever Bucky was drawing, he didn’t really seem satisfied with it. At all.

It didn’t take long until Steve was seated on the sofa, his bathrobe gone. He felt slightly awkward, suddenly painfully aware how dressed Bucky was. When he had his nude models over or when they had been drawing in class, he had always tried to hold the atmosphere light and easy. Bucky, on the other hand, didn’t care for any of that. It wasn’t that Bucky was rude, but he was withdrawn, quiet and kind of broody looking. He kept staring at the page of his sketchbook as if he could dare the lines on the paper to form something he was satisfied with. Steve found himself in positions, which reminded him of female roles mostly, were not making things any better.

While Bucky was sketching away, Steve had time to study the stranger’s face again since there wasn’t much else to do. There was a crease forming between Bucky’s dark brows as he concentrated. Since Bucky was mostly paying attention to Steve’s body – which felt weird and made him awfully aware how his too pale skin was glowing in the sunlight – their eyes didn’t meet. Either Bucky was as oblivious to Steve’s discomfort that showed in the slight blush on the blond’s pale skin, or Bucky chose actively not acknowledge the weird mood and did Steve the favor of not pointing Steve’s obvious slight embarrassment out. Still, if Bucky was in need of a female model he could have told him no on the phone.

As Bucky looked up again their eyes met. Bucky held his gaze but Steve couldn’t help but notice the tight set around Bucky’s mouth. Bucky’s eyes narrowed slightly and Steve looked away first. Apparently, Bucky didn’t like being stared at.

With nothing else to do but sit there and look pretty, Steve’s focus shifted towards the room again. The walls, he only then realized, were bare. There were no paintings. At all. There were pictures pinned onto a corkboard but they were too far away to see the faces of the people on the snapshots. They looked like photographs from a party as they seemed rather crowded. Then, there were shots from someone at a beach and a few, what he guessed, where postcards. There was also a note stuck to it with a doodle on it.

Even as Bucky asked if Steve was okay with him taking reference shots, he seemed oblivious to Steve’s discomfort, although he appeared to be tense. Steve agreed anyway, because even though he felt naked and exposed he knew it was about art and art alone. Bucky had asked and he had given his consent, at least the broody Russian was a decent human being. Still, the guy had more mood swings within an hour than any female Steve knew.

When Bucky asked Steve later on if he’d like a break and a coffee as well, he was grateful for the rest. The positions weren’t hard to hold since Steve was mostly sitting and leaning in certain directions – however Bucky wanted him – but he had begun feeling tense as Bucky’s aura of dissatisfaction had started to thicken the air.

“Why art?” Steve found himself asking after Bucky had handed him a cup filled with black steaming coffee.

Bucky froze, his hand still extended and his finger hovering. His face was suddenly closed off. “It is easy.”

Steve felt his eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline on their own accord. Art was not easy, at all. Even if Bucky Romanoff was overly talented, art was not easy. Not even if Bucky Romanoff was a natural and came from a long line of artists. Art was work. Like everything else was work. Talent was a muscle, it had to be used and it had to be trained.

He found himself huffing in disapproval, his eyes trained on the steaming cup in his hands. “Sure. That’s why van Gogh only sold one piece in his lifetime,” he mumbled, feeling aggravated by Bucky’s easy dismissal. He considered putting on the robe, suddenly feeling too naked, even though he was still wearing his boxers, but then opted for draping the blanket over his naked shoulders. Mostly because Bucky had arranged it so carefully and he suddenly felt like pissing Bucky off.

“Excuse me?” To Steve’s surprise Bucky managed to sound taken aback even though he was the one glooming all over the place. The uncomfortable mood had suddenly tipped towards a very tense atmosphere.

Steve was saved by a key turning in a lock.

The door opened to reveal a breathtakingly beautiful woman who looked about their age. Apparently, Steve had stumbled into the apartment of hot messes, because this, this was surreal. She moved like she was dancing and her clothes, a pair of tight black leggings and a soft looking off the shoulder shirt, were shouting _dancer_ as well as the woolen stockings she was wearing fashionably around her ankles. The pair of ballerina shoes that were peeking out of her sloppily zipped bag were another dead give-away. Her fiery red hair was pulled back into a tight knot, revealing high cheekbones and almond shaped green eyes. Under different circumstances? Steve would have felt his fingers itching to capture her fierce beauty.

“Oh, hey there.” Her voice was throaty and her nose was slightly red, she sounded and looked like she had a cold. “I’m just grabbing my stuff, act like I’m not here.”

“Thought you wouldn’t be back till later tonight.” Bucky took a sip from his coffee as he watched the woman take off her shoes, acting like the mood had not just spiraled south seconds ago.

The woman shot Steve a friendly, smile not taking notice of Bucky’s leery mood. There was a glint in her eyes that Steve couldn’t quite place, but maybe it was just the low hanging afternoon sun reflecting in her irises.

“Training finished early. The coach’s wife has finally gone into labor. About time, she looked like she was about to explode.” She dumped her bag on the kitchen table. “I’ll be gone before you know it. So go on with your peep show.” The door to her room clicked shut behind her a few moments later, giving a half undressed Steve and a moody Bucky some privacy.

“Roommate?” Steve asked unnecessarily and to fill the stifling silence.

“Yes.”

“Is she the one in the pictures?” Steve anchored his attention on the sketches on the coffee table once more, trying to save the mood.

“Mostly. I draw her when she stretches. She claimed that it creeped her out in the beginning but I know she likes to be sole focus of attention.”

Steve was surprised at how many words Bucky managed to string together and how much more relaxed he suddenly sounded. Apparently, the broodiness was confined to him drawing. The drawings – some of them colored with acrylics or tempera, some of them with watercolor - were very detailed, showing Bucky’s skill, style and dedication to the craft. Bucky had managed to capture her grace. “She makes a good muse.” Steve took a sip from his coffee, burning his tongue in the process.

“She’s not.” The words were matter of fact. He found Bucky’s eyes focused on Steve’s fingers wrapped around the coffee mug before he looked away. “You like art?”

“Uhm,” Steve offered eloquently. “I-” _I’m an art student myself, that can’t pick up a pencil anymore without having a mental breakdown or a panic attack since my mother died, because she was the last thing I drew and I’m thinking about dropping out of this amazing art academy that offers everything an art student can dream off, even though I can miraculously afford it to make my passion my job._ “I took a couple of art classes,” he half-lied. Steve didn’t feel ready to talk about this. Not to his closest friends and certainly not to a broody art student with the emotional competence of a stipple-brush.

Bucky didn’t look like he believed his model, but instead of delving into the subject of art, he excused himself to use the bathroom. Thank fucking god.

Steve sagged against the backrest of the sofa, sighing heavily. The whole thing felt stiff and strenuous and he started to regret ever coming here.

He jerked his head as a door in the apartment opened, but the soft footfalls revealed the redhead Bucky shared the apartment with, being closely followed by a black fluff-ball with amber eyes. The redhead was dressed in a black and white dress that hugged her narrow waist. Her hair was down, framing her face with soft curls, complimenting her features. “How is it going?” Apparently she was much better at small talk than Bucky.

Steve’s attention was focused on the feline resident of the apartment, his asthma wasn’t too keen on furred companions but Steve loved animals and happily took the risk of needing his inhaler whenever confronted with them and since his asthma hadn’t acted up until now Steve considered himself safe. Steve thought of himself more of a dog-person, but he had always enjoyed drawing animals. Sometimes more so than humans. One of his favorite pictures was of a Siberian tiger he had drawn in Central Park Zoo a couple of years ago.

“Good. I think.” With a female in the room whose gaze was solely fixed on Steve, he was again painfully aware of his body and his state of undress, even though her eyes had not once left his face to trail lower to the exposed chest peeking through the open fold of the blanket. Steve was not cut out to be a model and Natasha handled the situation like a professional, obviously used to stark naked people around the apartment.

Her attention shifted towards her handbag into which she put her phone and purse from her training bag. “You weren’t really what we had in mind when we were hanging up those flyers.”

So, the curvy font had indeed been a female’s handwriting after all. “What did you have in mind?” Steve shot her a questioning glance.

“Something more feminine, but then again I think you’re just perfect,” she chirped amused, grabbing her handbag. “See you around, pretty boy.”

After that, the rest of the session had continued mostly in silence. Steve had been wondering why Bucky had agreed taking him as a model, when the ad had been made out for a woman – which also explained the poses he found himself in. Especially when his question about the deadline – six more weeks – and his cautious inquiry to how many models he already had over for this assignment – two – had made him none the wiser.

At some point the black cat – Bubbles, Steve had learnt – had taken residence on the couch. Steve had reached out to pet her and soon, Bubbles had decided to smooch against Steve’s naked belly and curl up next to the blond relishing in the warmth of the sun while being scratched at all the right places. At least Steve had had something to keep his hands and mind occupied since Bucky was persistent on not making any conversation. Bucky didn’t complain about him moving though, only sometimes asking him to change his position slightly.

Bucky had taken a couple more reference shots of Steve with him mostly on the sofa. Even though the mood had never quite recovered, Bucky had made sure to ask if Steve was okay with the poses and taking pictures.

When they finally finished, Steve had been itching to move, his body feeling stiff from sitting tight and _looking this way_ and _leaning that way_. Steve had gotten dressed, Bucky had offered the payment and that had been it.

Back at Sam’s place, Steve pulled up Renoir’s _Dance at Bougival_ on his laptop and once again pictured Bucky as the dancer. He wondered with what kind of expression the man was looking at the woman, how Renoir had pictured the couple together. He imagined if there was affection in his eyes or rather desire and longing and he envisioned Bucky looking at him like that, with his grey, stormy eyes hidden under the brim for only him to see.

Then he remembered what a complete dickhead the guy had been, before remembering Bucky’s roommate, who could also be his girlfriend. Her hair had been as red as the woman’s headpiece in the picture, though a tad more crimson. Her eyes had not been hiding away shyly as the ladies in Renoir’s painting, they had been vibrant and sparkling and full of live and kind of intimidating.

Steve closed his laptop and went to the bathroom to take out his contact lenses. It was done anyway. He would never see him again.

Little did he know that within the last 40 hours he had seen Bucky his phone would ring and his mouth would go dry as he saw who was calling him.


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky hadn’t slept at all last night. He had passed out for about three hours before he had jolted awake, disoriented and tasting smoke on his tongue as the nightmare hooked its claws deep into his mind. He hadn’t been able to fall asleep again afterwards. He was restless and felt awfully aggravated. Worst of all, he had misplaced the fucking SD-card.

Kneading the little green anti-stress-ball Natasha had gotten him he began pacing the living room. There were dark circles under his eyes and Bubbles kept judging him heavily from where she was enthroned on one of the pillows on the window sill. It was her favorite spot. There were about a hundred sketches to prove it and at least two dozen shaded or colored drawings and a full-on painting, capturing her in all her hateful glory or the way the silky black coat reflected the sunlight. Bubbles was a good drawing exercise after all.

With Steve, she had been nice. She had cuddled with him on their sofa, had smooched the shit out of him. Not even once had she hissed at the blond or had looked at him funny. Unlike what she did now. Bucky swore that cat kept glaring at him.

Steve … the guy with the alabaster skin and too fragile bone structure. There were drafts scattered on the floor and on the coffee table, remnants of his mostly sleepless night, burying his sketches of Natasha. None of them had felt _right_. Something had been missing in all of them. The way the blond had held himself had been different from what Bucky had tried to put on paper. More delicate, more … more.

Something more.

Bucky had then wanted to pull up one of the reference shots on his laptop, which kind of hadn’t happened, since he apparently had misplaced the memory card. Bucky had torn his room apart, his clothes were still all over the place. He had rummaged in every drawer, had fumbled between the couch cushions, had even searched for it in the bathroom cabinet, under the bed and – of course – in his camera, which only had offered an empty memory card slot. Bucky didn’t even remember taking it out.

After not finding it anywhere, he had even gone through his memory card collection two times. He was in possession of a few since he didn’t really trust hard drives too much (they could, you know, break, but then really, everything could) and had developed a habit of cataloguing his collection of reference shots and his more artsy pictures on memory cards. He liked his system. It was well structured and was the only thing, apart from his finished paintings, he really took care of.

The card with Steve’s pictures on it was gone, had disappeared, vanished into thin air. When Bucky had suspected that Bubbles had eaten it, Natasha had quickly taken the cats side – of course, she had. Then she had told him that he was moody and a pain in the ass before going back to bed.

“Fine!” he yelled, throwing his hand up in defeat, making Bubbles flinch. He threw the anti-stress-ball angrily through the room where it bounced off the wall near their apartment door, just to fall to the floor uselessly. Bubbles ran for it. At least the cat was stupid, otherwise he would have had to fear for his life. One time he woke up on the couch with the cat across his face. Bucky swore that that cat had tried to suffocate him. On purpose.

Fuming he grabbed his phone, holding the device in a too tight grip.

“What are you doing?”

Bucky glared at Natasha. She was wearing an oversized plaid shirt, her hair messy from sleep and her face bare any make up.

“Begging.”

“Like that?” The words were swallowed by a yawn. Bucky was sure that no other human being would ever see her like that, all natural and relaxed. She opened the fridge to pull out the milk carton and fished a glass out of the cabinet above the sink. “You’re fuming. It’s clouding the air. Even in my bedroom.” She poured herself a glass and let the milk carton sit on the counter. “Who is the victim of your rage?” Bubbles strutted towards Natasha to press against her legs. The cat wouldn’t get any milk.

Bucky huffed.

“Oh yeah. Totally get that. Man, you and words, you should try and become friends.” She took a sip before bending down to collect the cat from the floor and made her way over to their sofa. Bubbles, the traitor, purred.

“I may have lost the memory card,” Bucky offered begrudgingly, “for real.”

“So you said,” Natasha lowered herself on the couch slowly in order not to spill the milk. Bubbles sat down in her lap, her paws kneading Natasha’s belly while purring some more. “Can you finish it from memory?”

Bucky dropped himself unceremoniously beside them, making Bubbles hiss at him. He shot the cat a dirty look. “No,” he all but sulked. Most of the times his memory worked, but more than not, it didn’t.

“You want to get a new model? Or maybe call him?” Natasha tickled Bubbles under her chin, making the cat stretch out her neck in blind trust. Bubbles would bite Bucky’s hand off if he ever so much as tried to pet her. Bucky huffed again and crossed his arms in front of his chest, radiating stubborn silence. “Or glamour the room some more with your joyful mood.” There was no anger in her words. Bucky loved Natasha for her character. She was a force to be reckoned with, but once you got onto her good side she was caring, patient, protective and understanding.

“Have you talked to your father again?”

“No,” Bucky grumbled.

“Did he call again?”

“No.”

Natasha squinted at him but stayed quiet. She drank her milk while scratching Bubbles behind her ears, making the cat lean into her touch and pressing her head into Natasha’s hand. No matter the history of claws and teeth he had with the feline roommate, he absolutely adored the way the cat just demanded from her human what she wanted, what she needed.

He felt the tension drain from his body the longer they sat in silence. Only as Natasha had finished her drink Bucky spoke again. “I need to call him.”

“Who? Your father or the guy?”

Bucky sighed in defeat, “Both.” Again, Natasha stayed quiet, letting Bucky talk to her on his terms. “What if she never wakes up, Nat?” His voice was quiet and laced with a slight tremor. A question he had asked the universe too many times.

Bubbles had to watch in disappointment how Natasha withdrew her hand to put it onto Bucky leg, squeezing lightly. “She will. One day she will wake up.” Bucky covered her hand with his, grateful for her friendship and her support. “It wasn’t your fault. You did everything you could.”

The answer was a whisper and a desperate plea to his sister to forgive him anyway. “I know.”

“Was he that good?”

Bucky blinked at her in surprise, not quite catching on. Her emerald eyes were taking in the detailed sketches of Steve’s face.

“The guy. The mysterious boy you had over, whose name I never got. Blond, pale, skinny, naked. Ring a bell?”

Natasha watched Bucky squirm next to her. Gnawing at his bottom lip he grumbled a muffled “Yes.”

“So, you’re saying I lost my throne as your muse to a guy, what a shock.”

Bucky glared at her, though there was no real heat in his eyes.

“Oh no, I’m flattered,” she went on, petting Bubbles halfheartedly while mocking Bucky. “Really. I mean, it was obvious that you’re not straight ass would at some point admit to enjoying a male inspiration. Not that he looks better than me. Or can move better than me.”

Bucky buried his face in his hands, muffling the sound of his words. “Nat, stop.”

“Relax, James. It’s not like you’re coming out just because you’re drawing a guy, for once. I was actually worried I have to start wearing pants around the house.”

“I drew Clint.”

Natasha made a dismissive gesture. “He doesn’t count.”

“He is male.”

“Yes, he is. But he isn’t the one with whose face you’re decorating the floor with.”

The silence stretched thin between them. “He came up the stairs and all I could think was that he was perfect.”

Natasha’s eyes wandered to the unfinished drawings that were littered on the coffee table once more, her eyes falling onto a drawing that showed Steve’s face with a band over his head, his lips lightly parted. Bucky followed her gaze before looking onto his still crossed arms, suddenly feeling exposed.

“I need to get to practice soon. Get the lotion?”

After Natasha had put the gel onto all those places on Bucky’s left arm and shoulder he himself could only reach when twisting his whole body uncomfortably, she had gone to take a shower while Bucky had collected the evidence of his obsession and retreated to his room to call Steve. He made a face at the mess he had created in there, kicking aside yesterday’s clothes on his way to the bed. After unlocking his phone, he scrolled through the list of calls. It showed his dad’s name and Natasha’s number. There was only one number that wasn’t in his contacts who had called within the last three days. He tabbed onto it and waited for the call to connect, while he was browsing through sketches in which he had tried to immortalize the blond’s delicate physique. He stopped at the first sketch he had made that day when Steve had been over. The one with Steve’s name and a date scribbled in the corner.

After the third ring Steve picked up. “Hello?” He sounded slightly breathless and a bit baffled. His voice a tad too deep for his skinny build, just like Bucky remembered it.

“Hi. It’s Bucky.”

“I figured,” there was some rumbling in the background and he caught Steve swearing under his breath. “Sorry, just-“ Bucky listened as Steve groaned annoyed at something. What a perfect timing he had, especially when he considered how not smoothly things had gone two days ago. “Sorry, I’m here, all yours. What can I do for you on this glorious day?” Steve’s voice was thickened with sarcasm.

“I can call later if this is a bad time…”

“No, it’s fine. I picked up, so it’s kind of my own fault that I made a whole pile of boxes topple over. What do you need?” Steve sounded suddenly alive but somehow managed to sound strained at the same time.

“Actually I need your help. I may have lost the memory card with the reference shots and I kind of need to … do them again? I’ll pay you of course,” he added quickly.

“Oh.” Bucky felt how his shoulders slouched. The sound of Steve’s voice was tight. Bucky braced himself to be blown off. “I’m kind of out of town at the moment. Can’t someone else fill in? Another candidate?”

Bucky vaguely remembered telling Steve about how many people had called. It was funny that he remembered that guy so clearly as where he mostly barely remembered what he had had for breakfast by lunchtime. He felt his heart rate picking up.

“I would like it to be you,” Bucky offered, his voice sounding a bit too high in his own ears. Bucky cleared his throat “I came up with a new concept yesterday that would make you the perfect model.” Truth was, he wanted to draw Steve, to capture the strong willed and stubborn character he had been allowed a glimpse into.

“I have a couple of weeks left till my assignment is due, I wouldn’t mind waiting till you’re back,” nope, didn’t sound hopeful at all. “Do you know when you’ll be back?”

There was silence on the other side of the line. Bucky kept staring at the sketch. He hadn’t spent too much time adding details to Steve’s face, he had only roughly outlined his body, had instead focused on the way Steve had held his arms, how the thick fabric had hugged his scrawny shoulders and lean torso. Bucky had sketched Steve like a dancer, dancing with an invisible partner, the bathrobe more a thick-layered dress than a robe. Bucky had wanted to try and capture Steve how he was. His build lean, not skinny. His bone structure delicate, not puny. His skin alabaster, not pale.

“The day after tomorrow.” Steve voice dragged him out of his own head. How long had they fallen quiet?

“That is perfect. What time suits you best?”

“You said you had the best light in the afternoon, which you do. Around three?”

“Yeah, three sounds good.” Bucky threw the pad with his sketches aside and got up hastily to cross the room with quick strides. At his desk, he grabbed his post it notes and a pencil to scribble down the date and time. “I would actually need you to come over three more times,” Bucky then sheepishly added, pushing his luck. “I have to do a triptych. Means I have to do three different paintings that-“

Steve interrupted his explanation with a patient voice. “I know what a triptych is. We would have to hash out the details but it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I will pay you for your time, of course.”

“Okay, cool. We will talk about the times when I’m over.” Bucky scribbled another note onto the post-it. Two words followed by a question mark. There was a throaty laugh on the other side of the line. “You’re writing that down, aren’t you?”

Bucky stilled completely, feeling busted. “Yeah,” he admitted.

“See you in two days.”

After Steve had hung up Bucky kept staring at the note he had scribbled and pulled the sheet off the paper block. It read _Friday, three p.m. Knows art?_

\- - -

When Friday rolled around they had cleaned the flat – or rather Natasha had made him clean the flat while she had been stretching and argued with Clint on the phone about which movie they would watch later that night. Which was okay, he supposed, since cleaning itself didn’t take too long. Getting all the art supplies ordered and collecting all his sketches and pads took up most of the time, but only because Bucky found himself organizing the sketches. As much as an artist could organize.

Bucky sorted them by project. Most of them were doodles, as he had his projects for his classes tucked away safely in his room (Bubbles was not to be trusted around his more serious work). He only used his pad around the house. Most of those quick drawings were in one of the many sketchbooks Bucky owned. He never left the house with one of those, as he needed them not only to capture ideas but also to scribble down notes.

He made a habit of always keeping a journal with him while only using one at a time. The already filled ones he kept in the bookshelf in his room. They were numbered and looked the same so that he would never wonder about the color of the binding. Which had happened already, when he had the brilliant idea of changing between colors to keep track of which journal was his current one. It had been a bad idea, to say the least.

Now, he kept making sure that he was carrying around the current journal with tagging it with a red mark, which stuck out on the top of his notebook. He used plenty of those colored labels to mark certain pages, but only on the side and with green to mark important notes, like appointments and assignments and other stuff he really should remember, and blue to mark sketches from ideas he really liked - Bucky loved drawing people and hands. He had an honest to god thing for hands and more than half of his sketches when he was riding the subway or was anywhere really, were about hands. Hands wrapped around rods in the metro. Hands wrapped around mugs. Hands holding a pencil or a brush. Fingers entangled with another person’s fingers.

“Ant-Man or the new Star Wars movie?” Nat called from the kitchen counter where she was making them a sandwich with her phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder. “No, Clint, we are not watching Lord of the Rings again.”

“Star Wars”, Bucky shot back without looking up from where he was piling his pigment-tins.

“Clint asks if he should bring take-out.”

Bucky’s phone chirped with a new text message. Since he misplaced it quite often, he had developed the habit of carrying it around in his pocket, even when he was at home. There were only two places his phone was ever supposed to be: in his pocket or - when he was sleeping - on his nightstand, attached to a charger. The text message was from Steve.

0845-95462216 _Hi. Are we still on for today? Steve_

“Tell Clint he can take you out,” he shot back over his shoulder while typing an answer.

Bucky _We are. See you at 3?_

0845-95462216 _Perfect. See you then._

Bucky got up from his place where he had been kneeling at the window mothering his art supplies. “Remember? Blond guy. Delicate bone structure. Preferably naked.”

Natasha shot him a wicked smile. “Bucky says you should treat me like the prima ballerina I’m going to be very soon and take me to out for dinner tonight.” While Clint was answering Natasha carried the plate with their sandwiches towards the sofa. “You can pick me up at six after my classes.” Then she hung up, without saying goodbye. “Come on. Food.”

“So you’re finally allowing him to take you on a date?” Bucky reached for the turkey sandwich that was thickly spread with mayonnaise while settling down on the couch. Natasha made the meanest cold turkey sandwiches.

She all but shrugged one shoulder while grabbing her low fat, no mayonnaise sandwich. “Where would we be if you’d get laid and I don’t?”

Bucky shook his head but didn’t comment on how he knew she wouldn’t get anything Clint was more than willing to offer tonight. Clint’s apartment was literally a constant mess and Natasha had her standards. Besides, she would want to come home, because even though they only were friends, Natasha had made it her mission on taking care of her childhood friend from elementary school, ever since those meds had started scrambling with his memory.

“You know I had the biggest crush on you in high school, right?” Bucky watched as Natasha fed Bubbles some of her cold turkey.

“Of course you did. Until you got yourself in a serious hormonal identity crisis and are under the impression you’re gay ever since. You will find your way back. Just continue therapy and everything is going to be okay.”

Bucky laughed, startling Bubbles as the rich sound of his laughter filled the room. “Sometimes I ask myself if you only insult me so hard because you think I’ll forget most of it anyway.”

Natasha’s smile was sincere, but the look in her eyes was tinged with sadness. “The fact that you remember is a good thing Bucky. Now do your job and press play.”

“You’re aware that we’ve watched that series like five times already?”

The redhead shushed him and mumbled with her mouth full, “You’re not supposed to remember. Now press play. I want to see how Chuck and Blair get back together and kick Jack’s ass.”

Bucky snorted. “Yeah, I will totally tell my psychiatrist about this amazing and groundbreaking upper east-side soap opera I recently discovered for myself. Again.” Which, as a matter of fact, had already happened once. “You do remember that they will break up in that episode?”

“Of course. How should they get back together otherwise?”

\- - -

By the time Bucky’s phone showed three o’clock he was by himself. Natasha had already left for her rehearsal an hour ago and Bubbles was safely tucked away in Natasha’s room, as she always was when Bucky had a model coming over - which had happened quite often over the last couple of months. When there were nude sessions going on in the apartment, Natasha made sure she was not around. Given her packed schedule, due to the premier coming up, Natasha wasn’t around too often anyway during the day. She still tried to leave them alone though, even when there wasn’t any training or dance classes on her calendar. She was a decent human being after all, though Bucky thought it had more to do with Natasha hoping he would get laid.

Bucky had shared with her how he felt about his … everything. Since the fire, he hadn’t stripped in front of anyone who was not one of his doctors, or a member of the nurse staff or Natasha herself. She often had helped him to apply the gel that should help with his scarred tissue, but apart from her no one without a medical background had laid eyes on his disfigured body parts. Meaning, no one had laid eyes on his anything since that day eleven months ago.

The heavy rain painted intriguing patterns onto their apartment windows, filling the eerie silence with its ambient and unique melody. He took a sip from his cup, lukewarm coffee spilling onto his tongue, while he was enjoying the weather. The sky was hidden away behind thick, black clouds, filling the living room with a dim light.

If he hadn't already taken his medication he would have let the weather drag him down easily. He leaned back against the wall of the window sill he was curled up on, feeling the cold radiating from the window glass, seeping through his long-sleeved sweater, as he shifted his focus to study the painting he had finished yesterday.

It was for another assignment, one that was due next week. The topic: physical handicap. For a while Bucky had considered doing a self-portrait, but then decided that his burned flesh was not a real handicap, at least not a physical one as it was barely affecting the functionality of his body. His mental issues were his handicap. How to draw a guilt wrecked soul that pumped itself full with anti-depressants because it couldn’t deal with the shit going on… Bucky had spent all but two seconds thinking about how to portray himself before he began to himself drifting towards a panic attack as imaginary smoke had clouded his vision and clogged his lung while invisible flames had licked up his body, trying to swallow him whole.

The painting displayed on the easel showed Clint and how the dirty blond experienced the world. Barton was almost deaf on one ear, making it sometimes difficult for him to catch everything that was going on around him. Especially when you tried to have a conversation with him in crowded or noisy places while standing on the wrong side.

When Bucky had learnt about Clint’s hearing being compromised he had known him already for over a year. Clint had grown up with it. The blond was amazing at covering it up and balancing it out. Barton had become good at reading lips and people in general, but he never called people out. Barton was good at poking a topic subtly until you spilled the beans yourself.

In the painting, Clint’s eyes were lowered slightly, as if to hide his gaze from the viewer or like he was concentrating. His prominent jaw line was set tight. The world around him was vibrant with color and life on one side, showing nature and people drawn in sharp lines, whereas the colors on the opposite of his face were duller and the lines slightly blurred as if the world was under water. It was showing a very industrial theme and cyborgs instead of humans. It referred to technology providing hearing aids - Clint would be able to perceive the world in full, but only with the help of a modern invention.

One of Clint’s eyes showed a radiant color peeking from under his lashes, while the other one was slightly opaque, as his perception was muffled due to his condition. Though Clint’s eyes were perfectly fine in real life, Bucky wanted to emphasize that vision was the way people perceived the world and their surroundings mostly these days and that people didn’t pay enough attention to their other senses anymore.

The thick paper the tempera-painting was on was stapled to a wooden frame. Bucky was more than pleased with the result and Natasha had asked him to put it on display – for Clint, because she really wanted Clint to see how wonderfully Bucky had captured him when she would bring him over later in the evening. Bucky wanted to show it off to his new model as well.

Then the doorbell rang, making Bucky jump. He didn’t put the cup down before making his way to the apartment door to buzz Steve up. While he waited for the blond to jog up the stairs he checked his phone - Steve was almost half an hour late - and then turned on the overhead light to not welcome his model in this, what Natasha called, depressing atmosphere (Nat loved to tease him how he should have become a writer with his fable for depressing vibes.) Bucky enjoyed the gloomy light a rainy day brought. It reminded him of autumn, his favorite season. Steve jogged up the stairs, wearing a heavy coat and carrying an umbrella. Though the rain had chased away the heat of the late spring, it was not as cold as the thick scarf, which was wrapped high around Steve’s neck and the lower half of his face to block the nippy wind, let on.

“Hi”, Steve sounded as if he was slightly out of breath, his voice muffled by the woolen scarf.

“Hi. Come on in.”

Steve put his umbrella down, leaning it next to the apartment door in the hallway and slipped out of his shoes quickly to not drip all over Bucky’s place before entering. “So much for the brilliant light, huh?” the blond joked easily, given the lack of sunlight.

Bucky found himself smiling as he closed the door behind Steve. At least the mood boosters worked their magic. He should have considered taking his medication the first time when Steve had been over. “I actually like the weather and the atmosphere it creates.”

“Only when you don’t have to be outside.” Steve hung his wet coat next to the door but didn’t take off the scarf right away. Instead, he pulled the sleeves of his sweater over his fingers in order to warm up, drawing Bucky’s attention to Steve’s hands.

“I was just about to make coffee,” Bucky found himself lying. Steve blinked at him for a brief moment before a genuine smile spread across the blond’s face at the appealing offer of a warm drink. It made the blue in Steve’s eyes sparkle and Bucky had to clear his throat. “If you want to, you can warm up some more,” Bucky offered with a gesture towards the open living room. “Make yourself at home. I prefer my models to comfortable before I ask them to take off their clothes.” At that Steve’s burst out laughing, with his head thrown back slightly and his delicate shoulders shaking, drawing Bucky’s gaze away from those slender fingers that almost disappeared in the too long sleeves of the slightly oversized sweater.

“Good to know. Thanks” Steve managed, still giggling quietly as he made his way into the general direction of the sofa while shaking his head in disbelief.

Bucky closed the apartment door and turned his attention dutifully towards the kitchen unit. Was he imagining it or was it much easier to be around the blond than it had been last time. Then again, Bucky felt oddly light-headed, what he blamed on his cheer-me-up-pills.

“I like what you did with the place, you can actually see furniture.”

Bucky huffed a small laugh as he put grounded coffee powder into the coffeemaker while he heard Steve shuffling around as he got comfortable on the couch. Then the room fell silent. A quick glance over his shoulder showed Bucky that the painting on display had captured Steve’s attention. Bucky focused on measuring the water before taking a fresh cup out of the cabinet for Steve, giving his guest and model time to view Bucky’s most recent work.

He wondered if he had asked Steve the last time how he liked his coffee. Either he hadn’t or he didn’t remember. “I forgot how you take your coffee,” he asked tentatively without taking his eyes off the fresh mug as if it might offer its opinion.

“That’s because last time you didn’t ask.”

As Steve didn’t offer any further information about his preferences Bucky turned, this time with his whole body, only to find Steve studying him instead of the painting. It took Bucky a moment to find his bearings. The guy surely was small but those eyes were intense. “How do you like your coffee?”

A teasing grin was tugging on the corner of Steve’s mouth. “Black, thank you.” Apparently, Bucky thought, this was payback for the shitty mood he had sported the last time around. He couldn’t blame the blond. “Nice work,” Steve acknowledged with a nod towards the painting, without taking his eyes off Bucky.

“Thanks.”

Even though the atmosphere didn’t feel as stiff as it had been last time it still felt… wary. They looked at each other for another moment. Steve turned his gaze away first. Bucky watched the way Steve studied the few items scattered on the coffee table. To the cover of Bucky’s black notebook stuck the yellow post-it note he had scribbled during their last phone call.

“So you think just because I know what a triptych is, I know art?”

Bucky scratched his stubbly cheek as he made his way over to the couch while the coffeemaker worked its magic. “My guess is you even know how to spell it.” Steve offered him a tense smile, throwing Bucky off. Guessing he had said something wrong Bucky didn’t dive into the topic further, looking around the room instead to find something to save the mood from tipping over. “Uhm. So, until the coffee is done we can maybe discuss your schedule?”

Maybe Bucky imagined it, but he could swear he had seen Steve’s shoulders relaxing a bit. “Sure. You said you had about six weeks left? Tell me when you’d like me to be here and how often and we can set something up.”

“Yeah,” Bucky confirmed as he sat down on the other end of the sofa. “For the pieces, I’d have liked to get each done before starting with the next one. But I can also try to get all the poses from you in one more day if that works better for you.” He hesitated for a moment as Steve’s look turned questioning before continuing anyway. “I’ll try to make my mind up so we get everything covered next time.”

Bucky had hoped to tap into the well of inspiration Steve had opened up the last time around further, but he hadn’t forgotten that Steve had been busy moving. So far, Bucky had a vague idea what he wanted to do for this assignment, which would be due near the end of the semester, but he was not really sure if he’d want to stick with his concept. He was one of those people who couldn’t make their mind up even if their life depended on it.

The blond tilted his head sideways as he was asking confused, “Didn’t you say two more times on the phone?”

“You’re moving,” Bucky tried slowly, wondering if he remembered their phone conversation correctly or if his memory was playing tricks on him again. He was pretty sure that he did and given the fact that Steve was in New York now and that it had taken a couple of days for Steve to make time for a few hours, he simply had assumed... something. “So I thought you’re…busy?”

Bucky couldn’t quite place the expression that ghosted over Steve’s face. “I’m moving back to New York,” Steve offered, lowering his gaze and tucking on the hem of one of the sleeves. “At least for a while.” The atmosphere shifted, grew heavier. Bucky licked his lips, not knowing what to say or do, feeling himself suddenly treading on thin ice. Bucky looked over his shoulder to check on the coffee-machine, praying quietly that the thing was done to give him something to do. Apparently he was out of luck.

“Sorry,” Steve offered rubbing the back of his head. “It’s not my favorite topic.”

“It’s okay, we don’t have to talk about anything personal. Consider this an all artsy zone.” Bucky made a sweeping gesture towards the room. The small smile Steve offered lightened up the room.

“Sunday’s would work best. But if you prefer a time during the week…?”

“Sunday sounds great-“

“Okay. Sunday next week and then the week after?”

“Sounds good.” With a nasty gargling sound, as if it was actively trying to end its life, the coffee machine broadcast loudly that it was finally done fulfilling its purpose of existence. Bucky cringed inwardly. They really did need to replace that old piece of trash.

“Do you want to write it down?” It took Bucky a second to catch the teasing tone in Steve’s. Bucky huffed a laugh.

Trotting back to the kitchen unit to fill their cups he huffed laugh. “I think I can manage.” He’d so write that down later.

“I like your painting. Disability?” Bucky nodded, with his back still turned, surprised that the blond figured it out. People usually simply said _it’s pretty_ , but it added up, if Steve really was involved with art, that he’d also talk about it instead of only staring at it.

“Yeah. What do you think of it?” Bucky carried the two cups to the sofa, putting Steve’s down on the table.

“I’m not sure if he is either blind or deaf. But I assume he’s deaf, since he is perceiving his surroundings with his eyes lowered,” Steve went on while studying the picture further. “It is very…” There was a pause as if Steve considered his next words carefully, “graceful and vulnerable. Intimate.”

Bucky stared at the blond. Though he had asked for Steve’s opinion, he hadn’t thought the blond would read the emotions in the picture so well. His professor the shit out of it, Bucky didn’t really like to brag, but he was good with a brush. Nat had called it _too good looking to be_ their _Clint_ and _really good_ , but then again she did like almost all of his paintings. Clint would probably call it _wicked_ , take a picture of it with his phone and use it as his new profile pic on Facebook.

“Thanks.” Bucky’s voice came out husky. He hadn’t expected the guy, who was in his apartment for reference shot-purposes only, to read in the painting what Bucky had had in mind while working on it. It was a very personal painting for him. Not because Clint was one of his friends, but because of the topic. The model had been Clint and Clint’s handicap had been his disability of choice, but the emotions portrayed were his own. Only that Bucky didn’t suffer as graceful as Clint did on canvas.

“I do, by the way,” Steve confessed haltingly while picking up his cup. “Know how to spell it, that is.”

“Spell what?”

“Triptych.”

“’s there a story to it?”

Steve shrugged his delicate shoulder and took a careful sip of his coffee in order not to burn his tongue before answering. “Perhaps.”

“Has it something to do with the one why you know Van Gogh only sold one piece in his lifetime?” Bucky quizzed.

“Yeah. Or that, when the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in early 1900, the empty spot on the wall had attracted more visitors than the painting had.”

“So you’re planning on stealing my painting?”

Steve laughed, his head thrown back lightly, his shoulders shaking. The sound filled the room and made warmth pool in his belly. Bucky wouldn’t be surprised if the thick grey in the sky would crack open and offer golden rays of sunshine in adoration. “If it’d help your fame.” The grin on Steve’s face was wicked.

“So far it has attracted zero visitors. The score wouldn’t be hard to beat.”

“Shame. The world should know you can draw more than girls in a puffy tutu.”

At that Bucky huffed a laugh. “Okay. You got me. Claim your price.”

“Why art?” The question came so quick that Bucky froze and looked at Steve dumbfounded.

“I-“

Steve took another sip, those intense blue eyes glued to Bucky. “And don’t tell me because art is easy or else I’m out that door.” There was a challenge in Steve’s voice.

Bucky closed his mouth shut. Clenching his teeth he considered why he did care. “I’m good at it.”

“Oh wow,” the sigh Steve let out was heavy with surrender. Bucky had no idea one could sigh as annoyed and pissed off as the blond just did. Without further comment, Steve leant forward to put the cup down on the coffee table and to get up.

It took another heartbeat until the realization sank in that Steve was actively keeping to his word. “It’s the only thing I’m good at”, Bucky blurted out, the sentence almost melting into one hasty word, making Steve freeze mid-motion and turning to look at Bucky. Slowly, the blond lowered himself back down onto the couch. Bucky huffed irritated. “Why do you care?”

If Steve felt fazed by the icy tone in Bucky’s voice the blond didn’t let it on. “I care about art.”

Bucky considered his words. “And what has my personal motivation to pick up a brush got to do with that?”

The fierce stubbornness in Steve’s features, as he remained short on an answer, amazed Bucky. Never had he thought Steve to be so full of passion. The conversation had taken more turns in ten minutes than Nat complained about her feet within a week. The mood had shifted more times since Steve had set foot into the apartment than Bucky had sketched the blond. Which were a lot. Way more than he’d ever admit to. “I don’t like dicks.”

Considering Bucky’s preference for said male body part and the fact that he found himself attracted towards the blond, the unintended irony in Steve’s words wasn’t lost on him. They stared at each other for a moment. Bucky licked his lips, wondering why he wasn’t pissed off when he really should be. He also wondered if the atmosphere was buzzing with tension or if he just imagined things thanks to the medication induced fog dulling his brain. Which was probably the answer to both of his questions: funny little pills.

Then the fight drained from Steve’s shoulders and the blond sighed into the thick fabric of his scarf. Steve looked as defeated as Bucky felt most days in the morning, when he couldn’t muster the motivation to get out of bed and be alive. “Sorry, I’m not in a very good place. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”

“Call us even.” That got him Steve’s attention. “It’s not exactly like I was at my best last time.”

Bucky could only tell Steve was smiling into his scarf due to the slight wrinkles around his eyes. “So you think art is the only thing you’re good at?”

“I guess,” Bucky shrugged. “Maybe I haven’t tried hard enough.”

“What if it is really the only thing you’re good at or passionate about, but you suddenly couldn’t do it anymore?”

Bucky’s eyes dropped to Steve’s now empty hands. He was tugging on one of his sleeve. A nervous gesture. Did Steve draw? His gaze wandered back up to Steve’s face, meeting those blue eyes. If so, why did he stop? Steve’s his hands didn’t seem to be shaking. His vision was apparently working perfectly (he had complimented Bucky’s most recent work).

He wanted to say that he had never thought about the possibility, which would have been an outright lie. Bucky had thought about it, a lot. Lying in the hospital for more than a month while being attached to heavy machinery monitoring his lungs, and with his skin oozing liquid in a desperate attempt to heal the burned flesh, he’d had a lot of time to think about abandoning art and his life altogether. The heavy pain-medication had made it almost impossible for him to focus long enough to even watch the news, let alone draw a straight line. Then, soon after his release, the panic attacks had started. Then therapy had come, together with regular medical checkups. Altogether a time-consuming aftermath to the misfortune of his family home burning down. Bucky barely had time to catch up on the classes he had missed, let alone the assignments. Then again, he had willingly thrown himself into studying and reading and drawing as it kept his mind occupied, which was wrecked with guilt.

Worst of all was that on bad days he couldn’t focus properly and his memory unreliable on a good day. His shrink’s wonder-pills had started to fuck with his head. At first, they had suspected the original head injury from when he had jumped with his sister from her bedroom window on the upper level, but the doctors had made it out to be a common side effect of the anti-depressants. Being a self-loathing piece of shit ever since the fire, which had put his sister in a coma and enough scars on his body to last him three lifetimes, Bucky just hoped that it would make him forget someday that he had been the one burning down their childhood home. Even if by accident. Or so he guessed. Bucky didn’t really remember what had happened that night, only that he woke up almost choking on thick, grey smoke, searing his lungs, while flaring flames had licked up the side of the house and the stairway.

So he told Steve what he’d told his shrink: “Then you’ll either find a way to make it happen or you’ll find something new you can be passionate about.”

“You really believe that?”

“No, but I decided that it sounds better than ‘all hope is lost’.”

Steve nodded slowly while studying his hands. The frown under the blond’s tousled hair gave away his inner conflict. Thanks to science Bucky was still in a rather light mood, even though the conversation had taken on a quite serious tone.

“You want to talk about it?”

That got Bucky an unreadable look from Steve. “Weren’t you supposed to pay me so I take my clothes off?”

“It’s about art,” Bucky dismissed with a shrug, repeating his words from earlier. He leaned back and took a sip from his coffee while studying the changes in Steve’s posture and expression. “And maybe I can show off a few things I picked up from my psychiatrist.”

Steve huffed a dry laugh. “I think I’d rather take my clothes off.”

“Whatever floats your boat, man.” Bucky set down the cup and picked up the camera instead, as if suddenly remembering why Steve was here in the first place. He turned it on and checked the memory card he had put in – not that the camera would let him take a single picture without a card to save it on for all eternity.

Bucky peered at Steve, who was still focused on fraying the hem of his sleeve further. Turning the setting on automatic he took a picture, knowing that the autofocus would work its magic. As Steve looked up, startled by clicking sound the DSLR made, Bucky released the shutter a second time. He glanced down onto the display that flashed the image for a few seconds. Steve was a bit off center and the ceiling lamp was a tad too bright, but nothing a few clicks on his laptop wouldn’t fix.

“Shouldn’t I get undressed first and get into like, a pose?”

“You’re in a pose”, Bucky offered, focusing on changing the settings manually. He hated taking pictures indoors with artificial light. “Do you mind?” Bucky held the camera a bit higher, offering Steve to object.

“It’s fine. Just didn’t think I’d be of use with my clothes on.”

Steve was of use no matter how many layers of fabric he was covered in, Bucky mused. He was smart enough to keep his mouth shut and had been clever enough to hide away all the sketches that resembled Steve’s build and every drawing that shared any similarity with the blond’s features. So instead, Bucky shrugged “I should turn on the heater before we start anyway. I kind of didn’t consider that someone standing around in my living room stark naked could be cold with that weather.” With that he got up from the sofa to turn the heating on, hoping that it would work since the landlord tended to turn it off during the warmer months in order to save money.


	4. Chapter 4

As it turned out, the heater worked just fine. Too fine actually. Steve stood naked, illuminated only by the grey haze of the rainy day and the soft light of a floor lamp next to the sofa instead of the blazing light of the apartments ceiling lamp. The light of Bucky’s floor lamp offered a much warmer and softer blaze and painted faint shadows onto Steve’s edged body. By now the camera was resting idly on the far end of the couch. Steve had trouble holding his balance as he was still laughing at how Bucky had just colorfully described his roommate’s threats to end him if he dared lay a hand onto her cat as he had told the tale of how he had lost the memory card.

It was much easier to be around Bucky with the rain drowning the city in a flood of put up umbrellas. Steve couldn’t put his finger on it, but he liked the change Bucky had made within those few days. Although Steve wanted to think that he simply had caught Bucky at a very bad time the first time he had been over, there was still a sincerity beneath the light tone of the art student, something dark in his grey eyes, a tension in his seemingly relaxed shoulders that was still there. A constant keynote in the easy smile Bucky now offered and the light tone of his voice.

They had discussed Bucky’s assignment while the heater had been warming the room. Bucky had shared his concept of using one light source in the one of the outer paintings to get bright spots in one of his three paintings and deep and dark shadows in the other one. Apparently, Bucky planned sort of a transformation of the different artist’s styles while creating something like a timeline, from what Steve had picked up. The same model in different states and poses, traveling through life or time just like the light traveled from one source over the surface until it faded into darkness, while putting in all the elements the assignment required.

The concept was interesting. The realization, Steve imagined, would turn out quite simple. He supposed Bucky was aiming for fine arts and well pronounced lines, but Steve guessed that it’d going to turn out more artsy-fartsy than sophisticated. Then again he didn’t know the student he was posing for and the picture that was still resting on the canvas showed a sensitive heart and a profound soul.

Bucky’s brows were drawn together in concentration as he was sketching. There was a light sheen of sweat on his forehead by now. “You can turn the heater down if you like.” Bucky looked up confused as Steve’s words were tearing through his concentration, his grey eyes focusing on him with a questioning look. “I’m about to melt into a puddle on your living room floor and I don’t even wear anything.” Which was a lie. Steve liked warmth. He loved summer for its heat, even though he couldn’t stay in the sun too long or he’d look like lobster thrown into a pot of boiling water.

Bucky’s eyes darted towards the window as if he considered for a moment to open it, but apparently he thought better of it given his own lightly sweaty state and Steve’s state of, well, undress. “Or you can identify yourself with my case and loose some of your layers,” Steve offered teasingly.

Steve watched Bucky’s eyebrows rising towards his hairline before his face transformed into something like a frown while Bucky seemed to consider something. The hesitation in Bucky was obvious and just as Steve started wondering what line he had possibly overstepped with the light tease, Bucky started to focus on his sketch again. Bucky’s pencil only kissed the paper about half a dozen times, before he looked up again. Steve couldn’t see what Bucky was looking at his phone screen, but he guessed it was the time.

“How about a small break? I think we’re almost done for today.”

“Sure.”

Bucky scrambled up from his seat and all but fled to the bathroom. Steve let out a heavy sigh once he was alone, picking up the red blanket from the sofa. He wasn’t cold but he felt a bit too naked when there was no pencil capturing the hard angles of his body. Steve grabbed the glass of water Bucky had put out for them and focused his attention on the room, set on not trying too hard to be riled up by Bucky’s behavior. The guy was … hard to pin down. When the mood was light and they were talking about art or the weather Bucky was easy to talk too, at least he had been today. An

easy easy smile on his lips and a shy but fond expression in the storm-grey eyes. But whenever Steve said something … anything really, he could literally see how Bucky was closing off.

Steve’s eyes wandered to the painting before wandering outside. The rain was still pouring outside, droplets trickling down the living room window. He noticed that the dead plants were gone. Looking out the window Steve also noticed that the clouds, heavy with rain, had almost the same color as Bucky’s eyes.

He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulder, enjoying the sensation of the soft fabric on his naked skin, while he studied the weather outside. The color of the rain-heavy clouds was not the only thing it had in common with the stranger painting him. Bucky was … not exactly cold but not exactly pleasant, he was bit like the rain, something you liked to look at but avoid with an umbrella if you could – a sort of buffer. Steve grinned to himself. It wasn’t that he wanted to come off rude with his comparison, but then again Bucky would never know.

Steve mused about the rain some more, about how warm summer-rain felt when it kissed your skin or how liberating even the cold autumn-rain could feel; grounding and soothing. He took another drink from the glass he was nursing. The blanket slipped from his bony shoulder and the heavy cloud cover opened up some more. Sunlight was blazing radiantly into to room, bathing him in a warmth that could not compare with a heated room. The light made Steve squint and wonder if there’d be a rainbow out there, somewhere.

He was just about to turn and sneak a look at what Bucky was working on when there was the clicking sound of a shutter going off repeatedly behind him and Steve turned around, surprised. Bucky took another picture. When he lowered the camera he only looked at the screen for a brief moment before he met Steve’s gaze. There was a small smile curling those soft lips and a glint in those grey eyes that was not caused by the sun. Bucky stood in the shadow, just on the other side of the sofa.

“Am I not wearing too much?”

The smile on Bucky’s lips was kittenish, a tad shy yet playful. _Yeah_ , Steve thought as his mouth went dry, _just like the weather. You think the sky is grey and the clouds are heavy, but the rain can be soothing and tender even if it comes pouring down._

As Bucky didn’t answer, Steve cleared his throat. “So. You and that camera.”

“I’m not using any of the reference shots for anything but.” Bucky hesitated a moment, his fingers fidgeting with the camera strap. “And none of the others, if you don’t want me to.” At that Bucky stepped closer, taking up the space in the sunlight next to Steve and he had to tilt his head a bit in order to meet Bucky’s eyes. Bucky wasn’t looking at him, he pulled up the preview of the pictures on his camera and angled the display towards Steve.

It showed the last picture Bucky had taken. Steve was bathed in a gleam of sunlight, his figure was almost black, only a silhouette in front of an illuminated window, almost drowning in the blanket that was pooling around his feet.

“It’s something I do from time to time. Not only for reference shots, but I like capturing moments.” Bucky shrugged. “It’s easier to immortalize them on film or … a memory card than to draw them.” Bucky’s voice was soft and low and Steve found himself mesmerized by the way Bucky saw the world. In the picture he actually looked … good. “It is a bit overexposed,” Bucky admitted while scrolling a few pictures back, showing the same picture with different light settings apparently. Steve didn’t know much about photography, but he understood the concept or a number of serial shots and gamma. Which summed up his knowledge altogether. “It’s mostly snapshots, since I don’t like posed ones, they always look so … stiff.”

“Huh,” was all Steve could offer, still staring at the last shot Bucky showed him. It was him on the couch, before they got started. Steve looked … not how he had felt. His eyes were staring directly into the camera. There was a hint of surprise in his features. The lower part of his face was almost completely swallowed up by his scarf. In the picture his lips were slightly parted and the look in his eyes was … conflicted. Steve was not sure if he really liked the picture Bucky had taken of him. He was not particularly shy when it came to pictures of him - Bucky had a few nudes to show for - though this unposed picture, it made him somehow feel vulnerable and raw.

“You make a good model.” Bucky’s voice snapped him out from his thoughts and he looked up to meet his gaze.

“Why photography?” It wasn’t rare that someone artistic had more than just one artistic hobby, but Steve felt intrigued to get to know more and apparently, he hit a vein, because Bucky licked his lips and lowered his gaze onto the camera. Steve could watch how he pulled back slightly, but he didn’t close off entirely.

“I couldn’t draw for a long time,” he offered, lowering the camera and staring out the window. “I was in the hospital for quite a while. When I finally came off the pain meds I tried to start again, to pick up where I have left off. I wasn’t satisfied with anything. I couldn’t seem to get anything right anymore” There was a small pause.

“My sister is in a coma.” The confession hit Steve like a train and he looked at Bucky, his eyes wide. “There is the possibility that she might never wakes up and while sitting at her bed all I could think was how I should have taken more pictures. To memorize her, you know. Because sketches and drawings didn’t do her justice. I could never capture the way she smiled or how her eyes were lighting up with joy.”

Steve felt the urge to reach out. There was a lump sitting in his throat and a knot in his stomach. He could relate, but Bucky was not his to comfort. Besides, he would have to drop either the glass or the blanket. Neither a good option, both destroying the moment altogether. “I’m sorry, Buck.”

The smile he received was small and tight. Forced for all Steve knew. Steve wanted to say something. Anything. Something more than the people said to him when he told them about his situation, about his mom. Something different, because whatever they said had not been … enough or wrong altogether. Their pity or them saying how sorry they were or their condolences or their bullshit about time healing wounds.

“It’s okay.” Steve knew it wasn’t, but it was the same thing he told everyone around him as well each time the topic came up.

“How long are you doing this?” Steve nodded towards the camera.

Bucky moved away a few steps. “A while. Six months. But I started with photography way before that.” Steve turned his head to see what Bucky was doing and stood awkwardly as Bucky brought the camera up to his face, bending forward a bit for a good angle. “It was never my main focus, though. Apart from a few lucky shots there is not much to show. So I went back to art.”

“What you gonna do after studying?”

“I don’t know.” Bucky’s focus shifted from the display of the camera to Steve, before he repeatedly took a few shots after changing a few settings. “Draw perhaps?” The answer came out sheepishly, making Steve laugh.

“Yeah man, good call.” Steve shook his head. “But I mean, what exactly? Illustration? Animation? Comic? Or are you going to teach?”

“You can move if you want,” Bucky simply said and turned away to get a different lens from the living room shelve next to the television. “I really don’t know. There are these art exhibitions the university lets some of the students take place from time to time.”

“Do they pay?”

Bucky snorted as he did swap the lenses with quick and practised motions. “Since when does fine art pay?”

“Hm. Maybe I should go back to plan A and steal one of your paintings to help your fame.”

That got Steve another laugh from Bucky. “When that does, make me van Gogh-“

“Only a little less skilled,” Steve threw in nonchalantly.

“-what does that make you?”

Steve put the empty glass down, making an act out of visibly mulling over the question as he was tilting his head to one side and studying the ceiling. “How about Picasso?”

“Picasso?” The quiet sound of the shutter filled the room again. “So you’re a sculptor?”

“Nah,” Steve dismissed easily, pulling the blanket closer around him while making his way over to the window sill. “I’m not really good at sculpting. Tried pottery.” He pulled a face as he remembered how awful that had turned out and Bucky released the shutter, capturing him making a face. Steve giggled and plopped unceremoniously onto the window sill.

Bucky was crouching down on the floor in front of the sofa. The camera was hiding most of his face and Steve dropped his gaze and took to rearranging the blanket that exposed one of his legs. “I drew.”

The sun was already hidden away again behind dark clouds and Bucky took another picture before he lowered the camera to study Steve’s face. “Why did you stop?”

Steve felt himself shrugging and fidgeting with the seam of the blanket. “Let’s say that I spent some time in a hospital as well, only that I couldn’t manage to pick up a pencil again.”

The room fell silent except for the soft trickling noise of the rain against the window behind him. As Steve looked up he found Bucky studying him. His jaw was set tight and the grey in his eyes a tad darker. “What did you draw?” Steve felt his face doing something, which must come away with a questioning look since Bucky spoke again. “Picasso was also known to paint his muse. Maybe you just lost yours?”

Steve opened his mouth, but his voice failed him. He wouldn’t have known what to say anyway. It was too fresh, still felt too raw. Closing his mouth he dropped his gaze to the floor. “My mother,” Steve heard himself confessing to the stranger while he sat naked in his living room. “She died a while back. I couldn’t really bring myself to go back to painting.”

Silence stretched between them again. Bucky neither spoke nor moved. He was still crouched by the couch, one elbow on the cushions to balance himself out and the camera still in hand, now pointed towards the floor.

“I miss it. Art.” As Steve looked up he found Bucky’s eyes focused on him, the expression on his face unreadable. “That’s usually the point where people say that if I miss it so much I should just get back to drawing.”

“Do you want me to say that?” Bucky’s tone came out flat.

Steve scrunched up his nose. He didn’t want to talk about this. He had already admitted more than he ever wanted to let on. Bucky was still a stranger. Someone who had sketched him and taken pictures of him while wearing nothing but his skin and his sarcasm as a defense.

“Is that why you’re here?” Bucky still hadn’t moved from his spot. Steve nodded at Bucky’s words.

“I wanted to know if it would help me … reconnect.”

“Does it?”

Steve tried a smile, but felt himself failing and probably only showed of a painful grimace. “I got to show off my knowledge about art history.”

“Yeah. Really impressive.” The mocking tone in Bucky’s voice was light. “Though I don’t think I’d ever have the brilliant idea to strip in order to get my inspiration back.”

“Well,” Steve smirked. “You could always strip and let my try to find some.”

He felt the blush crawling across his neck as Bucky stared at him wide-eyed and shocked, before he full heartedly laughed. The kind of laughter that made his shoulders shake and where he almost lost his balance as he threw his head back. Not the usual reaction when Steve asked someone to get naked with him, but it was better than a straightforward no. Besides, Steve had no idea what this hot guy with his hot roommate was into. For all Steve knew the hot guy was into his hot roommate; if so, he couldn’t blame him.

“Does that make me Caravaggio?”

Bucky, still grinning like a loon, and pulling himself to his feet croaked “What?”

“He was a sex offender.”

“Steve, where do you get all this from?”

Steve shrugged. “I got bored in class easily. Besides I’m a sucker for useless facts.”

“Man, you’re something,” Bucky mumbled just as his phone was buzzing. He picked it up and mumbled an apology in Steve’s general direction before answering the call.

Steve took in the way Bucky’s body moved as he turned around to face the kitchen unit. His eyes wandered over the broad back to his narrow hips. Steve would definitely not mind at all in case Bucky wanted to give him a hand at recovering his love or art. Steve wouldn’t also mind giving him a hand. At all.

As if Bucky had read his thoughts, he looked over his shoulder making Steve’s eyes snap upwards. He hadn’t paid attention to what Bucky had said, until Steve realized that Bucky wasn’t only speaking in a low voice, but was also speaking Russian. Bucky hung up, tossing the phone onto the sofa. “That was my roommate. She’s coming back early so maybe we should get back to work.”

Steve got to his feet and Bucky settled into the chair he had occupied earlier, picking up his sketch pad. The silence that settled between them felt lighter and somehow it was easier to breathe and from the way the corner of Bucky’s mouth were tilted upwards slightly it seemed, even though they had been talking about pretty heavy stuff, Bucky felt more at ease than he had been before.

Steve wanted to think that it had to do with him, his company, rather than the phone call.


	5. Chapter 5

The third time they saw each other, Bucky has the outlines of his first painting almost finished. He had been busy drawing. A lot. Drafts were littered all over his place, but none of them had felt _right_. It had seemed that no matter what he did, no matter what posture he chose, he never was satisfied with how it turned out – and that was only the first of the three paintings he had to get done for this assignment. So, when inspiration hit him as he was just tucking away his art supplies after his last class, he didn’t hesitate and got right to it.

Bucky had done the outlines with feathery light pencil strokes, the lines barely there. His sketch book was filled with quick drawings and more or less detailed sketches of his new favorite model. Bucky knew Steve’s silhouette by heart by now. Not worrisome at all. At that point, Bucky had only glimpsed at the reference shots a to check that he had the anatomy of the posture right when it had seemed off on one of his drafts. Not only once had he been looking at them for no reason at all but for the simple fact that he liked the pictures of Steve.

The reference shots were neatly organized in a folder of his external hard drive and tucked away on one of his memory cards so that he wouldn’t manage to lose them again. The lost memory card had still not shown up though, which was a damn shame, because he had really liked the pictures he had taken then.

His calendar marked two more Sundays with the name _Steve_ and whenever his eyes had skimmed the name he felt a thrill of excitement rushing through him. Steve was … inspiring. They hadn’t really talked much about anything and yet, he had said more than he had said to anyone in the last couple of weeks that wasn’t Natasha (and Clint by extension) or his therapist. The blond didn’t back down from his disgruntled mood and had taken Bucky’s grumpiness in strides. He was easy to talk to and given the amount of sketched and drawings Bucky was in serious trouble. Especially because of one drawing. A full on drawing. Colored and everything. It looked suspiciously like a certain blond. Something that had only started out as him doodling, doing an exercise as he hadn’t been able to allow himself to be satisfied with any of his works. So Bucky had gone back to one of his favorite methods to use when he couldn’t draw something that he really liked (not that he ever had created a piece he didn’t have had something to complain about): he drew from a template.

His therapist had asked him to do so by memory, as it would maybe help him. Which was how Bucky ended up with Steve as a version of Vermeer’s muse. A painting that was never to see the light of day. While drawing, Bucky’s thoughts had kept wandering back to their conversation about Picasso and Caravaggio.

Caravaggio had indeed been not only a brilliant painter but also a sex offender. What they had been joking about was a poor comparison to Caravaggio’s list of felonies, but it had led Bucky to start researching all the things they hadn’t learnt in art history (or he simply had forgotten) and had found a couple of interesting facts he hadn’t been aware of so far. Bucky was a quick learner…or had been a quick learner. These days, his memory wasn’t the most reliable thing, not since he had started with his medication. Bucky was almost certain that he’d forget about half of what he had read as he was trying to multitask in history-class with scrolling on his phone in secret and listening to the professor. The way Steve’s full lips curved around an amusing thought was something Bucky couldn’t get out of his head.

Which was how he ended up on a bench on campus. They were sitting under one of the trees, his latest draft tucked safely away in a cardboard quiver leaning next to him. Natasha seated on his other side with one of her legs tucked under and with Clint on the backrest of the wooden bench between them. Each of them was nursing a cup of coffee to go.

Bucky had decided that he’d finish the painting at home. He had discussed it with his professor before he had left to get a second opinion on his concept. The final idea had come from a rainy afternoon, when no brushes or pencils were held at all. It was far from being finished, but it was too precious to him to leave it behind on campus. It was something Bucky wanted to take his time with and relish it. Lines had come together brilliantly, a certain blond offering all the inspiration he had needed. Bucky was looking forward to working on it again, to trace the arch of Steve’s brows and the line of his nose and the curve of his lips.

His eyes fell onto said certain blond, the well of Bucky’s inspiration, who was just walking across campus. So did his roommate.

“Hey pretty boy!” Natasha suddenly called out right next to him causing Bucky to let out a mortified groan, feeling heat rise to his cheeks as soon as he saw who she was waving over. “That is him, isn’t it?”

“Stop it, Nat!” Bucky hissed as he watched how Steve stopped in his tracks and looked up from the slip of paper to look around, as if he was searching the side of the building rather than thinking he was the one being addressed.

Natasha brought her hands to her lips and whistled loud enough to make Clint jump in surprise. “Hey! You! Blond guy!” Now Steve was turning his head in their direction. “What’s his name again?” Natasha was leaning towards Bucky, her eyes not leaving the blond.

“Steve,” Bucky all but groaned. He was fairly sure that Steve had not had any interest in being called out on campus by the roommate of the guy who paid him to draw him naked.

“Steve!” That got them Steve’s attention. Bucky watched as a smile bloomed on Steve’s face as he laid eyes on them. From the corner of his eyes Bucky saw Natasha waving Steve over.

“I hate you,” Bucky muttered.

“No you don’t.” Natasha patted him on the thigh and Clint took a slurping sip from his coffee.

“He looks a lot like the guy you keep doodling.”

Bucky felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment even further, praying that Steve hadn’t heard Clint’s comment as he stopped in front of them.

“Hey you, good to see you again.” Bucky didn’t need to look at Nat. He knew her well enough to know the dashing smile she threw Steve’s way. “Almost didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.”

That got them a full-hearted laugh from Steve. Bucky was amazed how good he looked laughing and with his thick rimmed glasses on. “Hey. Didn’t know you studied at NYU?” Steve’s eyes had come to rest on Bucky.

“I don’t,” Natasha jumped in as Bucky didn’t manage to use actual words.

“She doesn’t,” Bucky agreed quickly, clearing his throat.

“I’m just here for the coffee.” Natasha lifted her Styrofoam cup and wiggled the almost empty container.

“I do,” Clint offered helpfully. “Nice to finally meet you. Their place is littered with your face. And the rest of you.” Clint even made a gesture to include the very everything of Steve below his neck. So much for being helpful.

Steve’s eyes snapped back to Bucky who stared back at Steve mortified. “Sketches. For the assignment. I sketch a lot.” Bucky elbowed Clint hard in his thigh and shot him a death-glare. “Don’t you have some corpse to slice up?”

Clint wiggled his eyebrows. “Oh yes. I do. But I still have enough time to get a look at the guy you’re having naked when he’s over.”

Bucky hid his face in his hand for a second before turning to Steve. “I’m sorry. He is not allowed outside that often.”

There was a smile on Steve’s face that was hard to read. It looked like a mixture of being uncomfortable and trying hard to still appear polite.

“Clint’s studying medicine. But we made sure that he’d go into forensics. He’s lacking social skills.” Natasha nudged Clint’s leg with her shoulder. “So tell me Steve, are you studying here too? What’s your major?”

“Oh, I’m not, actually.” Steve scratched the back of his neck and looked back the way he came. Bucky guessed he was looking for an escape route. “I’m here to… to observe.”

“Now that is an interesting way to spend your time at university.”

“I’m planning on transferring, but I don’t know which major to choose really. So a friend of mine had asked the dean if it was possible to sit in on a few different lectures.” Steve’s eyes dropped to the folded sheet he was holding. “I actually have to go. Maybe you could point me into the right direction?” Steve was searching their faces.

“Of course,” Natasha offered happily, “unfortunately I have to run. Rehearsal.” Natasha already got to her feet and pulled Clint up with her. “Walk me to the station, will you?” It was hardly a question. Before leaving she waved a small goodbye towards Steve. “See you around pretty boy.”

“Bye,” was all Steve could say before they were gone.

There was a moment of silence as Bucky got to his feet awkwardly and collected the cardboard quiver, which suddenly seemed to weigh a ton. “I’m sorry.” Bucky felt dreadful. “They’re … they’re usually better around people.”

Steve’s stifled laugh caught him off guard. “Sure they are,” he mocked. “Friends always are. Though I can’t decide if you got your people skills from them or the other way around.”

Bucky felt his lips doing something and hoped he was showing off a not too pained smile. “Where’s your next lecture?”

“Oh,” Steve hurried to squint at the printed schedule. “Business. I think.”

Bucky leaned over to get a look at the printout, which was in fact a timetable, before he pointed into a direction and started walking in a slow pace. “So you made your mind up?” At Steve’s questioning look Bucky continued, “Art. You’re looking for a different field of study?”

“I- yeah.” Steve’s eyes fell to the floor for a moment. “It was actually my lawyer’s idea to look around. The dean owed him a favor. Now I’m sitting in on a couple of different lectures.”

“Your lawyer. Fancy.”

“No. Not fancy.” Steve sounded strangled and a quick glance to the side told Bucky that he had said something wrong. Steve was focusing a tad too hard on the way ahead of him, his shoulders a bit too stiff. “He is my legal guardian,” Steve lied, not wanting to give away that there was money in his family now, enough that he needed an actual _trustee_ for anyway. “Since I’m still underage.”

Right, Steve’s mother. Bucky wanted to kick himself. He didn’t dare asking if there had been no other relative to step in. It was none of his business. “Art and business. Long stretch.” Bucky wondered how old Steve really was.

“Oh yeah. I feel totally inspired by their talk about economy and business plans and marketing. It gives me live,” Steve deadpanned.

Bucky laughed. “Okay, but if you don’t like it, then why’re you doing it in the first place?”

“Because I never knew anything besides art.” They were now walking along the outskirt of Washington Square Park. “My mom got me my first set of pencils and brushes when I was still in elementary school. I was home schooled a lot, have been to sick back then to really attend school. Weak immune-system. So I drew. A lot. All the time.

Later, when I went to school, I had to sit out in sports so I drew.” Steve shrugged as if to brush away the heaviness of the words. “I couldn’t join a sports club at high school either and I wasn’t the most popular kid, so I drew and kept drawing. And I was good at it. Then we suddenly had the money to afford this fancy art academy and then my mom got sick and now I don’t know what to do with my life. So I’m trying to cover all my options.”

The wind rustled the leaves of the trees around them.

“How did she die?”

“Cancer.” There was a small pause. Bucky didn’t dare to peek over at Steve, tried to keep the mood as relaxed and casual as it could get with a topic like that. “She was always so full of life and so stunningly beautiful. And now I feel like I’m letting her down by just giving up.”

“Doesn’t look to me like you’re givin’ up.” Steve looked at him and Bucky felt himself smile encouragingly. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

When Steve laughed it was a soft and quiet sound being carried away by the afternoon wind. “I’d never have thought that I would get life-advice from you, of all people.”

At that Bucky’s smile faltered.

“Oh no, don’t get me wrong. Gosh, sorry.” Steve was now scratching the back of his head. A nervous gesture. “It’s just, that they all try to prod me into something I don’t want. Or they keep telling me that it’s okay to not do anything for a while and to ‘let art come back to me’,” the blond was making quoting gestures with his fingers, “to just mourn and grieve and feel numb and dead inside and that everything will be fine on its own. You’re the first person that told me that it’s okay to do something else than art. And you’re paying me for my body and have me standing around in your living room naked.”

Bucky wanted to laugh at those words, wanted to feel a giggle rise up in his chest that would spill from his lips as a contagious and cheerful sound. Instead, he smiled tight-lipped. “Maybe because I have been there.”

Again silence stretched between them, this time heavy with their pain, each of them indulging in their own. “Sorry for dumping this on you.”

“No,” Bucky hurried, “I’m- it’s nice to know that not everyone has everything figured out all the time. So you went to a fancy art academy. How fancy?”

“We used real canvas and oil colors.” That earned Steve a frown from Bucky and Steve gifted Bucky with a giggle. “I’m just messing with you. We used normal paper and tempera and acrylics just like you do.”

Bucky’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out. His eyes scanned over a text from Nat.

 _Pub Quiz. Peter cancelled. Get your pretty boy there, we’re a man short._ No one these days wrote text messages without shortcuts or smiley. No one but Natasha. Just as he was about to tuck his phone away there was another text from Nat. _We all know how much you love strays._

“The first idea was to transfer to New York, to look at my options at NYU. I didn’t want to leave the city again although there’s nothing that keeps me here, but it’s … home, you know? And then I couldn’t really see myself drawing anymore and the prospect of earning a living with art suddenly seemed …impossible once the rose-tinted glasses came off and now I realize that nothing really holds me in this city and that I maybe should just leave.”

“I know the feeling,” Bucky admitted while in his stomach dropped at Steve’s words about leaving town. So Steve had been busy moving away after all. “You can’t make a living of fine arts.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

Bucky shrugged. “I don’t know. If fame doesn’t work out for me maybe I’ll try teaching.”

“Huh,” Steve stated, studying Bucky’s face for a long moment. “It could work. You have the broody art professor-thing going.”

Yeah, Bucky really did, didn’t he.

They slowed to a halt and Bucky pointed towards the building. “This is you.”

Steve turned his head to look at the building before turning back to Bucky. “Kay. Thanks for walking me. I’ll see you Sunday?”

Bucky wiped his hand on his pants and his fingers coming to rest on the phone he had put back into his pocket, as if to remind himself to ask. Bucky had nothing to lose and Steve was leaving soon anyway. “Actually, Nat texted me. Apparently we’re a man short for our pub quiz. It’s on the first Thursday each month at O’Malley’s. It’s kind of a tradition and-.” Hesitation was written all over Steve’s face. “It would just be me and Nat and Clint. And they’re horrible people, so I could totally understand if you’d say no.”

At first Steve looked delighted, his lips parting as if he was about to agree then and there, but then he lowered his eyes and looked at his feet, kicking an imaginary gravel. “I- I can’t. I’m underage.”

“Oh.” The sound that escaped Bucky was soft and he turned his head and studied the building for a moment as if it would provide him with an answer. It did. Turning his attention back to Steve he found him looking at him already from under those long and dark lashes. “I kind of know the guys there. Went there when we were still underage. I could ask them a favor. Vouch for you.” He tried to make himself smile, but it felt forced. “But if you don’t want to, then that’s cool.”

“No!” It came out hurriedly. Steve stopped himself and tried again. “No, I’d like that. I mean if you- if that’s not a problem.” Bucky felt himself lighten up and Steve answered him with a shy smile, blue eyes sparkling. “I mean yeah, sure I’ll come. Sounds like fun. Thursday?”

“Thursday,” Bucky agreed. “You can bring a friend if you want. The more the merrier. At eight. In Brooklyn.” Bucky still didn’t know where Steve was living. “And I should get going. I’ll text you the address. Let me know when you’re there so I can come and get you. See you.”

“See you.”

Bucky Barnes had a crush and said crush would finally spend time with him when both of them were clothed and neither of them was paying for the others company. He fumbled for his phone and dialed the last called number. “Is Peter really sick?”

“He is sick. Love sick. He is taking his classmate out on a date.”

“On game night. Isn’t Stacey a nerd?”

“Wonder Woman hit the theaters last week, I think an arcade is about geeky enough for them. Besides, he looks cute. And I think he likes you.”

“You have seen him two times and Clint kind of insulted him?” Bucky huffed.

“Yeah, sugar cup. And he didn’t run but actually came over and he agreed to get rid of his clothes for a second time. So he is coming Thursday?”

“He is.”

“Perfect.”

“I said he can bring a friend.”

“Smart move. When he is in a relationship he’ll probably drag his significant other along.”

Damn it. He hadn’t thought of that.

“Do we know if he is into your kind of thing?”

“We don’t.”

“Well, maybe he into hot, grumpy, broody issues.”

“I hate you.”

“Of course you do. I called you hot. You told me so many times not to insult mankind. It’s your turn to go shopping by the way. Don’t forget Bubble’s favorite.” Then she hung up.

Thursday had been a wonderful and sunny day. People were still sitting outside at cafés or taking walks in the park even though the sun had already begun to set. Bucky was wearing his paint clothes – which had once been a white shirt - his hair a messy bun. He had been working on his newest peace all afternoon. The color of the blue fabric in his painting was radiant and the lips, slightly parted, were a rosy red. God, the person in the painting didn’t look shy at all. With their eyes averted it looked like innocent sin. Steve made a brilliant muse, once again. Which was why Steve was never allowed to see that painting.

Around lunch time Bucky finally texted Steve the address of their regular pub including the nearest stop, just after Natasha had shot him a text, reminding him. Then, he had hauled himself up in their apartment where Bubbles was sleeping on the couch or trying to make his life hell by constantly knocking stuff off the coffee table. One day he would kill this asshole-cat.

Bucky was just cleaning up the mess Bubbles had made by knocking down one of his pigment containers, spilling the powder onto the floor. He tried to save as much as he could and shot the cat death glares. Bubbles glared right back, tail jerking daringly. He hated the cat. The feeling was mutual.

“If I had known you were the spawn of the devil I would have let you rot.” Bubbles growled from her place on one of the chairs at their dinner table.

His phone rang and he wiped his hands on his pants, leaving red marks. “Yeah?”

“Hey, I’m running late. Can you feed Bubbles before you go?”

Bucky shot the cat a dirty look and got up from where he was crouched on the floor. “He looks fat. I think he should get on a diet.”

“James, you are not starving my cat.”

Bucky growled. “He owes me pigment. Again.”

“You’re the superior species. Close your containers. I’ll meet you there.”

As Natasha hung up he looked at the time. It was already past seven. Crap. Bucky had about enough time to change and to feed the cat and he would still barely make it in time. Bucky was not fan of public transport, he enjoyed walking way too much.

He closed the container with the red pigment he was able to salvage and stored it away with the rest. Funny thing was that Bubbles let his art supplies on the other window sill be. They were only a problem when they were anywhere else in the apartment and preferably opened.

He fed the cat (Bubbles had the habit of sniffing the food as if Bucky tried to poison him, something Bubbles did with everyone but Nat) and went to the bathroom to wash his hands and arms. He washed his face and changed his color-stained shirt and pants against a pair of dark blue jeans and a black long-sleeved sweater. The almost finished painting of his muse he carried into his bedroom to hide it from prying eyes - or maybe only Steve’s eyes. Bucky wanted to believe that it was one of his best works so far, even if he had simply copied a famous piece of art.

Bucky knew he needed a shower, his hair was a mess, but it was games night. Not a date. Steve was there, but it wasn’t a date.

Before he left he checked his phone for new messages. Nothing. It had been almost nine months and Becca still hadn’t woken up. He pulled on his shoes and grabbed his wallet and his keys, stuffing them into his brown leather jacket before locking the apartment door behind him.

The pub was as busy always. Thursday nights weren’t usually a busy nights, but then again New York never sleeps. The pub was a bit off the grid, a place with an entrance hidden away on a quiet road with an old-fashioned sign over their doors, only illuminated by a single light and the distant blaze of a streetlamp. The pub was hard to find, but once they did all the obstacles had apparently been overcome since no one was asking for his license or any proof of legal age, so they just entered.

The main room of the bar was poorly lit and crowded. Most of the tables were free while people were clogging the spaces between them, standing together in conversation. The walls in the back were cased with fake stone and the floors lined with dark wood, which surely would have to tell a couple of interesting stories. The bar was made of dark and polished wood, as were the tables and the chairs. The furniture looked well used and was more comfortable than it would let on. The walls were covered by pictures and plates. There was a jukebox next to the small hallway that led to the restrooms and some sort of storage room and a small stage, almost on taproom level, tucked in one corner.

The ceiling was narrow and there was a big blackboard leaned at the mirror of the bar. There were head lights hanging low onto some of the tables. The light bulbs installed shone a weak light onto the table tops just like a couple of candles would have.

Steve craned his neck, looking for Bucky or Natasha’s red hair. He felt Sam pressed up at his side, his hands tucked away safely in his pockets and looking around the busy pub. There was Irish folk music blaring out of the speakers, battling the volume of the chatter of the guests.

There was a tab on his left shoulder and as he turned he felt his face light up.

“You came!” Bucky’s smile was open and warm. There was shyness in his eyes, or perhaps it was just the poor lightning that painted shadows into the grey of his eyes. Bucky’s gaze slipped over his shoulders. “And you brought a friend!”

For a moment Steve’s nerves acted up. Bucky had said he could. Right? “Yeah”, Steve found himself answering way too quiet, his voice swallowed up by the bustle around them. Bucky was leaning towards Steve anyway, right hand outstretched.

“Hi”, he practically yelled. “Nice to meet you.”

Steve watched them shaking hands, had to angle his body to the side a bit to make room. “Nice to meet you too. I’m Sam.”

“Bucky.” Steve watched Bucky’s expression. “Come on, I’ll show you to our table.”

Their narrow table was on the right wall next to the bar a bench installed on one side of it just below a window and three vacant chairs dotted around it. “He looks nice.” Sam’s voice was right next to his ear. Steve turned his head and found his friend leaning down to him, so he hadn’t had to yell and be overheard by the object of his remark. Sam’s eyes were fixed on Bucky.

“He is moody.”

“Good thing you’re a constant ray of sunshine.” Sam had already straightened again and nudged Steve forward. Bucky turned his head as if to check if they followed him or as if he overheard that last bit.

“Hey fellas.” Even in this loud atmosphere Natasha managed to purr her welcome. Clint waved a hello from where he was sitting on the bench and Natasha shot the newcomers a sly smirk. There were only two chairs left and Bucky made Clint scoot over, sitting to Clint’s left on the narrow bench.

“You remember Steve, this is Sam.” Bucky gestured towards Sam who took his seat with his back facing the bar. Clint shook his hand, Natasha nodded at him from across the table.

“So. Game night. Didn’t know these are still a thing.” Sam rubbed his hands. It was him who had convinced Steve to come. Steve had agreed to Bucky that he’d show up, but as soon as he had been home he was determined to let Bucky know he couldn’t make it. Sam had pecked him with so many questions as to why and what and who until Steve had been annoyed to his very bone. Only to play the ‘if you want to stay in New York you gonna need friends; more than me’-card, followed by the ‘you won’t shut up about that guy anyway’-joker.

Steve had agreed on going after Sam had promised to come with him. Besides, Stark had told him _to live a little_. Being at a pub, a bar, the very place he was not allowed into legally, meant breaking the rules. Some people didn’t mind bending the rules or ignoring them, but breaking the law was something Steve didn’t feel very familiar with. There was first time for everything.

“You do game nights?” Natasha’s fingers were dancing at the edge of her beer glass.

“I did. Come from a small town. Haven’t been to one in years. Back then it wasn’t in a pub and we didn’t drink beer.”

“Sounds boring.”

Steve’s eyes darted to the respective person talking as he followed the quick exchange of words, that was, until his gaze landed on Bucky, whose hands were folded on the table in front of him, weight balanced on his underarms and leaned forward. Apparently not picking up on the obvious flirting that was going on around him or simply choosing to ignore it. “Since you’re saving our honor and help us defend our place at the top of the list drinks are on us tonight.”

“Speak for yourself,” Clint snorted. “I’m a student. Penniless and living off goodwill.”

Natasha simply shrugged one of her shoulders. “I’m a lady. I never pay for drinks.”

Bucky snorted and lifted his hands in defeat, palms up. “Okay, okay. _I_ am paying for the drinks tonight. At least for you, since you’re guests at this table,” Bucky was pointing towards Steve and Sam, “ _you_ on the other hand have to earn it.” Bucky was glowering at his friends, which got him an offended look and a mock complaint from Clint and a judgmental look from Natasha. “So what would you like to drink?”

Steve’s eyes darted to Sam. All of them were nursing their Irish draft, in case the label on their glasses wasn’t lying. Sam met his gaze before looking to Bucky. “I might try one of those.”

Under Bucky’s expecting eyes Steve answered, “A soda.” To his surprise none of the three reacted in any booing manner like he was used to when he was at a party with his academy-friends. All of them were underage, but someone always managed to drag along someone older than them to buy booze and they had let him know their opinion when he didn’t wanted to get wasted with them. His health wasn’t something he really liked to gamble with and the last time he got wasted he had been running around barefooted in winter, ending up with a serious case of pneumonia that had almost killed him. Literally. Besides, if he got busted for being at a bar underage, being sober maybe would help his case.

Bucky got up to fetch their drinks just as a bell rang. Steve craned his neck to look at the bar where the sound had come from. What his eyes found was Bucky leaning over the bar counter, one foot up on the railing and leaning heavily on his elbows. It pronounced the curves of his backsides in those jeans and the outlines of his shoulders.

The way his shoulder blades visibly moved under his long sleeved sweater as he paid and picked up the drinks, Steve was almost positive that Bucky didn’t wear anything below it and why would he. New York spring-heat had returned as scorching as ever, but Bucky had never once dressed accordingly to the heat and since he looked slightly uncomfortable when he had been walking Steve to his lecture, Steve had thrown his suspicion that Bucky was just used to desert heat out the window. There was something off. When Steve looked hard enough, and Steve most certainly did, he could see that Bucky’s left shoulder was a bit thicker than his right, or rather his biceps was bit bigger in volume. It was barely noticeable, but Steve had been studying human bodies for years and was good friends with anatomy.

The room around them cleared. The people that had been mingling were heading for their tables. By the looks of it the whole pub was in game night mode and there were only two vacant tables.

“Steve.” It was Sam’s voice that made him snap out of it. He felt heat rising up his neck as he had been caught staring. Neither of them commented on it though. Sam nodded towards Natasha and Steve turned towards her.

“I was asking what you specialties are. Your strengths.”

“She likes to make battle plans. To make sure we have everything covered and know our weaknesses.” Clint was looking at him with a sinister expression. Steve felt his mouth opening, but nothing but air came out. He tried again.

“Art. I did study art.”

Natasha clapped her hands as if happy over that revelation. “Oh you did? Well, isn’t that just excellent. Two almost art majors and a nutjob.” Her emerald eyes settle on Sam. “Looks like we have to save them.”

“You’re aware that I’m still studying medicine?”

“Sure, buttercup. Just as I’m aware, that you really suck at history.” Clint pulled a face but didn’t look honestly offended.

“So do you!”

“I beg to differ.” Which settled that.

Just as Bucky came back, drinks in hands, Steve came to realize they were actually quite a fun bunch to be around. Bucky handed out their drinks, a beer for Sam and another for Clint, which was very much appreciated by the dark-blond, and a soda for Steve. There was excitement lighting up his entire face, just like a child would look at all the wrapped presents at Christmas morning.

It turned out that the quiz started quite easy. The moderator, a bartender with a heavy Irish accent, piped happily that those were only the warm-up questions, before the music was put back on. Bucky explained the rules to the newcomers. In each round, ten questions were displayed on a screen behind the bar and they had to write the answers down. The sheets would then be collected and the next round would begin. There were six rounds and in case there’d be a tie at the end they’d solve that in a guessing game. Each of their tables got a number placed in the middle of it at the start, on the blackboard was written the number and below the group’s name. Their table was table number 5 and the name on the blackboard said Avengers. Their table was not the only group with a rather fierce name.

After each round and with the questions collected the volume roared up again. By the looks of people leaning over to their neighbor tables or wandering off to different tables with their drinks in hand people seemed to know each other fairly well.

“Don’t let them fool you”, Clint let them in while leaning over the desk as if he was letting Sam and Steve in on a secret. “They act as if they’d like you, but they’re only trying to make you quiver with fear.”

After each round, the score was written on the board and, depending on the number, there came cheers and the sound of high-fives from different tables. The atmosphere was fun, warm, one could feel the familiarity amongst the participants, but there was also the thrilling ting of competition dampening the air.

The more time passed the more difficult the questions got. By round four they were already pretty advanced. Apparently the crowd was filled with some sort of quiz-master-veterans. Clint did a good job with answering sports-questions, a category in which Sam was just as helpful. Natasha covered most of their history part, which had ended up at some point in a small argument between Natasha and Bucky how many legitimate children Ludwig XIV had. They settled on six, but only because Natasha threatened to let Bubbles lose. Steve didn’t understand where the threat was in that. By the looks of it, neither did Sam.

Between rounds two and three Bucky got them a refill, keeping to his promise he insisted on paying for his and Sam’s drinks. Bucky came back with three bears for Nat, Clint and Sam before he grabbed the rest of the drinks from the bar. Two sodas, one for himself and one for Steve, who watched Natasha raising one of her perfect eyebrows at that.

Round four was a picture round. There were ten pictures shown on the screen and they had to write down the names of the people portrayed. The images kept sliding over the screen repeatedly while a clock was ticking away in the left corner. The sixth picture was, as a matter of fact, a piece of art. The screen showed Renoir’s _Dance at Bougival_. Instead of answering that one, Steve turned towards Bucky, who had by now an arm slung over the back of the bench so that Clint, whenever he leaned back, had Bucky poking at him teasingly.

What Steve also noticed was that Bucky always tapped Clint lightly on the shoulder or his biceps when he wanted to get his attention drawn to their side of the table. Steve remembered the picture Bucky had on display vividly. Clint had been the model, he had recognized the man the moment he had laid eyes on him at campus.

Steve met Bucky’s gaze and their eyes locked for a moment as if they were sharing something. An event. A though. A memory. But they didn’t share any of those. The Dance at Bougival was something Steve had had in mind at their first meeting, it was nothing they’d ever talked about in the slightest. Still it felt like Bucky knew, like he knew how Steve had painted the two of them in their mind.

“Guys,” Clint’s voice, oblivious to what was going on, tore through the tension. “You study art. You pay good money for your education and you don’t know that one?”

Steve glanced towards Sam and caught him sharing a look with Natasha.

“Dance at Bougival,” Bucky answered. Steve’s eyes snapped back to Bucky who was now watching Natasha writing the answer down.

“Renoir,” Steve added, his words drawing Bucky’s attention back to him. “The artist is Renoir.”

Sam peeked over his shoulder at the blackboard. Their group was amongst the top three. “This could might get us ahead.”

Clint snorted. “Those guys are sharks. That guy over there. That’s Bruce. He could take us on singlehandedly. All of us. The whole room. At the same time. Smart as a whip.”

“So he’s the champion?” Sam guessed.

Bucky snickered. “Ah-uh. We are. He is scared of Nat.”

“He’s a bit in love with her. Or afraid of her,” Clint added for good measure.

Bucky did pat Clint’s shoulder and said just low enough for Steve to catch, “Aren’t we all.”

Round six was a music round. Snippets of songs were played and the teams had to guess. It was fun and a relive. At round five the questions had been so advanced that Steve was sure that most of the room would have no trouble at all to participate in one of those TV game shows, but then again the whole night had been a group achievement.

It turned out to be a tie. _The Incredibles_ , the table where the wise Bruce with his curly hair and glasses like Steve usually wore them was sitting on, had 53 points, as did they. The bartender announced a guessing game. Clint explained to Steve and Sam that this round’s questions all required a number as an answer. After the round each team would have to add the numbers to a total. Depending on which team was closest to the sought sum would win. They didn’t make it. Their answers had a total of 67, their opponents announced 71. The correct number was 70 straight up.

Bucky groaned, Clint hung his head in defeat and Natasha looked dissatisfied in a way that one wanted to bow to her and beg her forgiveness. Sam, who had been invested from the start leaned back on his chair and crossed the arms in front of his chest, looking as displeased as they all felt. All but Steve. Steve couldn’t find it himself to feel disappointed at their loss. He felt himself beaming and the moment Bucky caught his expression he saw wonder creeping up in those grey mirrors.

Bucky smiled at him as their whole table joined the round of applause for the victors which were cheering at the table.

“Had fun?” Bucky asked as soon as the clapping died down and the folk music blared from the speaker once again.

“Yeah,” Steve brought out breathless. “I did.”

They left soon after they headed in the same direction. Steve and Sam were heading to the next subway station. The late spring night was easy on them, the air nice and not too chilly for a walk. Clint was on his phone just as Sam told Natasha that they lived three stops away from the next station.

“Kate can pick us up”, he announced. “I told her to meet us at the station.”

Steve knew that they lived a bit further off than Sam did. “How come you ended up in that pub? It’s not exactly around the corner.”

Bucky was walking next to him, wearing a leather jacket over his long sleeved sweater that looked worn soft and well loved. His hands were buried in his pant pockets. “I grew up around the corner.” He turned and walked a few steps backwards next to Steve, lifted a hand and pointed at a building down the street that was hidden away in the dark. “There’s a small diner down there where my mum used to work when she came to New York. She moved in upstairs and got a place nearby as soon as she could afford one. It’s not the best neighborhood, not anymore. Too quiet at night. Too many empty buildings crumbling down around those who still live here. But it was a good place to grow up.”

Steve had only peeked over his shoulder. There was no sign of any diner for him to see, so he had watched Bucky instead. Clint, Natasha and Sam were walking in front of them. The night carried an occasional laughter to his ears. “Where does your mother live now?”

“We moved.” Bucky had turned around again, facing forwards with both of his hands tucked away again. "A nice house if you can believe it. From Brooklyn to the suburbs. I always missed the city though. Missed the bustle. A nice house with a lawn and white fences was nothing that made me happy. The neighbor’s kids were not exactly fun to be around.”

Steve watched him pull a face. “Bully’s?”

Bucky turned his head to look at him, surprise in his eyes. “Oh no. Not at all. But boring. So, so prude and boring.”

“S’that why you started to draw?”

“Nah. Started that a long time ago while we were still living in Brooklyn. Where’d you know Sam from?”

Now it was Steve’s turn to look at him surprised. “A comic store actually. I grew up in Brooklyn too. There was this comic store down the street and it was the only place my mom allowed me to go to.” The memory of his mother tasted bittersweet on his tongue. “So there was this kid, saying something to another kid about my favorite series. And it was not nice. So I told him how utterly wrong his opinion was. Since then we’re friends.”

“Who was Sam? The one whose opinion you corrected?”

Steve smiled. “No. The one who I agreed with. We might have talked the poor bastard into the ground. I think he left the store traumatized, but he did promise to give it another try. We never saw him again though.”

“Which series was it you so passionately agreed upon?”

“Firefly.” Steve peaked at Bucky, who was watching him, humming in the back on his throat before looking straight ahead.

The station was in sight and there was a car waiting at the curb for them. “I think that’s us.” Bucky came to a stop a few steps behind the others and turned to Steve. “Thanks for coming.”

Steve felt a warmth in his chest bloom the way Bucky looked at him, as if he was genuinely happy that Steve had showed up. “Thanks for the drinks.”

“I think we owe those _incredible_ bastards a rematch.”

Was that an invitation to do that again? “We might do.”

Bucky looked over to where Clint was patting Sam on the shoulder in a friendly manner before turning to the car. “ I’ll see you on Sunday?”

“Yeah.” It came out a bit breathless. “Same time?”

“Same time.” Bucky smiled in a confident and charming way that Steve had never seen him do. Not when he had been over and not when he had been playful with his friends. There was something different about Bucky though, as if he was more relaxed, more at ease. Steve didn’t know what it was that had made Bucky open up and easier to talk to, but he really liked this side of his.

They headed towards the stairs after waving a goodbye at the rest of them. Sam slung an arm around Steve’s shoulder. “Nice people.”

“Nice people,” Steve agreed. This was leading somewhere.

“So you meet people like them when you strip for money?”

“You mean fun people?”

“Gorgeous people!” Sam exclaimed. Steve didn’t need to turn his head to know the expression on Sam’s face. He was head over heels into that redhead.

“Usually, you meet people like me when you strip for money, but yes.” The platform was almost vacant. Given the weekday and time it was no surprise. Sam punched Steve playfully in the shoulder for his comment.

“So, that guy.”

And there it was. The talk. Oh boy. As Steve had no way out of this he faced Sam, hands tucked away in the pockets of his jacket as the crisp night was harsh on his skinny body. “That guy,” Steve confirmed.

“Easy on the eyes.”

Steve hummed in agreement.

“Are you glad I made you go?”

“What gives you that impression?”

“The way you looked at him.”

“Surprised you noticed, the way you were ogling Natasha.”

“I think we should do that again. You know, socialize. Meet new people. Expand the hand-selected circle of your friends.”

Steve narrowed his eyes. He loved Sam and he knew that the hit on Steve’s nonexistent circle of friends in this state was with good intention - Sam knew that he could only bring Steve to get himself out there if he pushed the right buttons - it still kind of hurt his feelings a bit. “The quiz is only once a month.”

“Huh.” Their train arrived. “Then maybe you could get out of your handsome new friend if she’s single?”


	6. Chapter 6

His phone rang before noon. Bucky’s stomach dropped as he read Steve’s name being displayed on the screen. Things had gone so well, or so he had thought. He had been able to let loose, to relax and to make actual conversation with Steve instead of their stiff interactions when he had had the blond over. There had been bantering and laughter and jokes and apparently Bucky had somehow fucked up. The only reason Steve would call was because he was canceling.

“Hello?” Bucky hoped the phone would make him somehow sound less devastated than he suddenly felt. He hadn’t had realized how much he was looking forward to seeing Steve again.

“Hi, this is Sam. Steve’s friend from the pub.”

Oh. Oh, this was bad. It was even worse than he had imagined. Steve had his friend call him. “Yeah, I remember. Hi Sam. How are you?”

“I’m fine.” For a moment his phone offered only silence. “I’m calling for Steve. He- he’s not feeling so great and I don’t think he can make it today.” There were noises in the background Bucky couldn’t quite place before there was the sound of a door being shut quietly.

Bucky’s stomach dropped even further. Had something happened to Steve? “Is he okay?” The question was out before Bucky’s brain was able to catch on.

“Yeah, he’s just down with the flu and sporting a pretty high fever. He asked if it was okay if he’d come by another day as soon as he’s better?”

“Sure,” Bucky agreed quickly. “He can call me when he’s feeling better. Or let’s just make that next Sunday.” That should give Steve enough time to recover.

“Okay, great. I’ll let him know. I gotta go.”

Bucky stood there, in the middle of the apartment, staring at nothing in particular and taking in the shock how much he had anticipated his next session with Steve. His eyes settled on the easel where his unfinished drawing was patiently waiting for him and taunting him with Steve’s silhouette. Bucky tossed the phone onto the couch from where Bubbles hissed disapprovingly at him before making his way over to the easel to caress the delicate frame of a certain blond with his brushes instead of his eyes.

Steve sent him a text on Monday, apologizing for not showing up. Bucky replied that it was okay, even though Nat called him out on sulking, and that they were on for next Sunday as long as Steve was up for it. Steve was.

It gave Bucky another day to catch up on his work. He even managed to finish two pieces.

Next Sunday was hell. The weather temperature outside were spiking and summer wasn’t even here yet. The windows of the apartment were wide open to leave as much air in as possible before the sun would scorch the living room floor within two hours and he would have to close the blinds, to shut the world out.

Bucky didn’t like heat. It meant his long sleeved sweaters, no matter how thin the material, would make him suffer, cling to his skin uncomfortably and get him weird looks and questions he didn’t want to answer. Here, by himself, he enjoy the freedom of sitting around in only a top muscle shirt and showing off those nasty scars. Bubbles didn’t care about his disfigured skin.

His night had been brief. Bucky was lacking sleep and he ran solely on caffeine. A call from his dad on Saturday afternoon had destroyed his will to live. The latest check up on his sister had not only shown no changes, but also the money was running out. The bank wouldn’t give them another loan and the doctors said that the slim chances his sister would ever wake up were now dropping towards zero and they were still fighting the insurance on the money.

Bucky was devastated and angry. They had never told him that the already had been scraping at the bottom of the loan and that the banks refused them any further credits.

Holding his head in his hands, Bucky just saw no end to his guilt. Not only did he almost get his sister killed but he bankrupted his family. The only reason he was still at university was his goddamn scholarship.

Nat had already left early in the morning, training and rehearsal keeping her busy. She had been sitting with him throughout the night, talked him down with soothing lies and let him nap with his head in her lap and drinking tea with him. Bubbles hadn’t appreciated Bucky taking up his favorite spot, but the way the cat was curled up next to him right now and purring Bucky was almost sure it didn’t hold a grudge.

Bucky reached down to card his fingers through Bubble’s black fur, the strands silky against his skin. If Rebecca never woke up… “What do I do then?” His own voice sounded strange in his own ears. Bubbles blinked at him lazily, sensing the distress of the human but not offering any wisdom.

His dad didn’t want him to drop out of NYU and as it wouldn’t save them a lot of money, Bucky hadn’t had much to argue with and had then insisted to stop going to therapy. Therapy was everything but easily affordable, which had ended in a nasty argument with his dad almost yelling at his stubborn son over the phone and Bucky throwing a mini-tantrum he wasn’t too proud of. Which was why he got himself his old job back. It was a crappy job at a decent coffee place with amazing cakes and pastries, not too far off campus in Manhattan. Bucky had known the owner since he had started at NYU and the owner knew about his accident and his _issues_ , as it had been the last job he had been working when the fire had happened. It didn’t mean it would be a walk in the park, but it had been overdue anyway. Bucky had supported himself before this whole mess, had even been working at a bar occasionally on Saturdays as soon as he had been 21, and it had been overdue Bucky pulled his head out of his own ass and stopped wallowing in self-pity. Aside from his mental issues he was as healthy as they came.

The doorbell rang, making Bucky jump and causing Bubbles to growl in strong disagreement of the sudden movement. Was it three already? It was.

Bucky had been sitting in silence and the sun was already sprawling into the room, burning the air. He still felt raw around the edges but Bubble’s company had helped – though he would undergo torture before ever admitting to that.

Bucky buzzed Steve up and hurried into his room to snatch a thin sweater from the floor. He didn’t remember when he had worn it last, but it wasn’t as if he was about to get into anybody’s personal space. With today’s tormenting heat Bucky would sweat his ass off pretty soon anyway.

Had he taken his medication? Bucky couldn’t remember. He felt all tingly and odd and guessed that he most likely had.

When he opened the door Steve was already waiting. Bucky noticed he was wearing his glasses today. They were framing his face and the dark rim made the blue in his eyes stand out even more. The greeting almost got stuck in Bucky’s throat at the suspicious look that creeped on Steve’s face as he gave Bucky an once-over.

“Am I interrupting something?” Steve’s face was sporting a vibrant red, Bucky wasn’t sure if it was only the heat or if he was sunburnt or maybe both.

“No, not at all. Come on in.” Bucky closed the door behind Steve, leaving the blond to take of his shoes. Steve had a bag slung over his shoulder which he dumped next to his sneakers. Bucky caught Steve looking around as if in search for something before making his way into the room where Bucky just closed the windows and the blinds to block the sunlight out.

Making a line for the couch, Steve greeted Bubbles who happily let himself be petted and fondled by Steve’s long and slender fingers, while Bucky got them water from the fridge. “I’ll happily get straight down to business and strip for you. This heat is insane.”

“Yeah”, Bucky agreed, already breaking a sweat. In his hurry, he had absolutely not considered taking off his muscle shirt first.

“How is your drawing coming along?” By now Steve was kneeling in front of the couch to be at eye level with the feline. Skilful hands got Bubbles to purr so loudly that Bucky could almost feel the vibration running through his body.

Forcing his gaze away from Steve’s hands he cleared his throat. “I don’t know. I have turned over the concept a million times and have two almost finished paintings that don’t go together at all and one of them is so far off the assignment that I’m about to call it quits.”

That got him Steve’s attention. There was surprise written all over his face for a brief moment before it was replaced with a knowing smile. “Figures.” Bucky’s raised eyebrows pulled a snicker from the blond. “You’re skittish. So I kind of assumed that it would translate into you being not able to stick to a concept.” Apparently, Bucky’s face showed the conflicting emotions that came with that statement as Steve added quickly, “I don’t mean to offend you. But you’re kind of overthinking. A lot.”

Bucky pressed his lips together as he tried to keep his face under control. That was … true. He was overthinking things.

“But you’re also passionate and confident. So maybe the two of them are so good that you can’t really decide.” There was a sly grin on Steve’s face. “And you’re wearing your sweater inside out.”

Bucky looked down at himself. Oh. He was. Looking back at Steve it finally clicked. Bucky brought his right hand to his head to card his fingers through his messy hair. Steve had been asking if he interrupted… he- he had asked if Bucky had had someone over. He opened his mouth to say something only to snap it shut again.

“You wanna show me what you have?”

Bucky stared at the blond who rose to his feet. “I-“ Bucky couldn’t show Steve. Not his paintings. Not the one with him portrayed as a muse, not the one of him being a sinful seduction. His mouth went dry. Bucky couldn’t show him what was underneath that unnecessary layer of fabric. “I don’t know.”

Steve’s smile faltered at that. No matter how hard he tried to keep it plastered on, the disappointment was clearly visible. Shrugging Steve buried his hands in the pockets of his pants. “That’s cool. I didn’t want people to see my unfinished work as well.”

Oh yeah. That was good. Bucky could work with that. “Yeah. Sorry. Not so confident after all,” he lied.

“So,” Steve drew the word out and looked at the room for help, obviously uncomfortable at how he had seemingly overstepped an invisible line. “Shall we start?”

“Yes!” Agreeing quickly Bucky went over to the window to turn the easel so Bucky would face the room while working and put up a new canvas.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it last week.”

Bucky peered over the edge of the canvas to see Steve twist his fingers, remembering how Steve told him about being ill a lot as a kid. “Don’t be. I’m glad you’re better.”

“What’s the plan for today?”

“You undress and I tell you what to do.”

Steve barked a laugh. “That’s how it is? Okay big boy, since you seem to like quizzes and having me naked, how about a game?”

“’S that what I’m paying you for?”

Steve’s grin was playful and wicked. “If you win you don’t have to pay me anything.”

Bucky considered the option. It wasn’t about the money, it was the way Steve was talking to him, _flirting_ with him…maybe Bucky had a shot after all. “Tell me the rules and I’ll tell you if I’m in.”

“Ah-ah,” Steve scolded, picking up a water from the table and cracking the seal open. Bucky traced the movement of Steve’s hands before his eyes darted back to the blond's face. He really liked those glasses. “That’s not how this works. You’re either in or you’re out.”

Bucky gnawed at his bottom lip as he watched Steve drinking. This was flirting. Positively flirting. “Shoot.”

“Since we both know so much about art, each of us asks the other a question. When the answer is correct nothing happens. When the answer is wrong-,” Bucky wasn’t sure if the pause was for drama or if Steve had second thoughts. “When the answer is wrong a piece of clothing has to go.” The way Steve’s voice came out dark and smirking Bucky was sure it had been solely for drama purposes and it was working.

Bucky’s mouth went dry. A strip-quiz. Panic settled into his gut and the world was suddenly wrapped in cotton. He had had his fair share of strip-poker, this was different. If Bucky didn’t have the correct answer he would have to take off … something. The scars on his left arm and shoulder were tingling as if to daunt Bucky. “Okay.” Oh boy, he was so screwed. Suddenly the room felt much hotter than a moment ago.

The excitement on Steve’s face didn’t do a thing to fight off the dreadful feeling in his stomach. “Great! I hope you can work with me dressed for a while. Because I’m going to destroy you.”

Bucky tried a smile and hoped it came out somewhat okay. “Who goes first?”

“What year was _The Scream_ created?”

Steve watched Bucky smirk at him. “Which version.”

“Good,” Steve praised, grinning. “Your turn.”

Bucky took his time to ask his first question. All the while those grey eyes were trained on him. Steve had been right, the suggestion of this little quiz had Bucky intrigued and it brought back the spark he had seen in Bucky’s eyes for the first time when they had been at the pub. “How many years has Michelangelo worked on _The Creation of Adam_?”

“Five. _The Last Supper_ ,” he went on, knowing he’d given the right answer, “There are six apostles on either side of Jesus. At each end head of the table is one apostle. Is the left or the right one standing?” That quiz was how Steve had been learning in school, minus the stripping of course. There was no way in hell Bucky would beat him at his own game.

“The left one.” Okay, Steve had been going easy on him. “What color was his tunic?”

“Green.”

Bucky grinned. “Nope. Blue. Just like your eyes,” he teased. “Is it still my turn?”

Taking off his socks Steve shook his head mildly annoyed. “It’s my turn.”

Bucky leant back in his chair, his hands folded in his lap as he watched Steve with a somewhat satisfied expression. “What was the inspiration of Picasso’s _Guernica_?”

“The Spanish Civil War. Who painted the dogs that are playing poker?”

Steve felt his jaw drop. “Really? You’re making me lose my shirt on _that_?”

“I take it you don’t like Coolidge's art?”

Steve huffed. “Come on. Dogs playing poker. Just because you can use a brush it doesn’t mean everything you create is considered art.”

“It is.” Bucky was way too happy about this.

Muttering a curse under his breath, Steve grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged it over his head. “It shouldn’t be.”

“Strong opinion. Now I definitely won’t show you any the unfinished paintings. Or any other for that matter.” Bucky’s voice was light and cheerful as he grabbed a pencil and pointed towards a free space in the living room for him to pose.

“I can have quiet opinions.”

Bucky’s hand moved over the white canvas, the sound of the pencil’s tip brushing over the paper filling the room. “Maybe I should paint you as a cat playing poker.” Bucky peered over the easel, mischief sparkling in his eyes. “Though you strike me more like a golden retriever.”

Steve shot him a mock glare. “You wouldn’t.”

“Your turn. Where is Rembrandt’s _Night Watch_ currently portrayed?”

Bucky seemed to think hard for a moment, before he bent down and took off his socks. At Steve’s questioning look he simply said, “Just following your example.”

Steve had hoped he’d get to learn Bucky’s secret with that question. Still, with just one more question, one which was almost impossible for Bucky to know the answer to, Steve would finally see what Bucky was hiding.

“What if the inquirer doesn’t know the answer to the question asked?”

“That’d be against the rules,” Steve explained.

“Would that mean you’d have to lose a piece of clothing as well?” Bucky asked, raising one eyebrow.

“Amsterdam,” the blond simply answered one question while ignoring the other.

“Have you ever been?”

“No. But one of my professors was obsessed with Rembrandt”, Steve said. At that point he didn’t feel anything resembling shame in front of Bucky. It was the third time they did this. If it wouldn’t be for Bucky’s intense gaze making him awfully aware of his body. Bucky’s undivided attention and the passion that was sparkling in the artist’s eyes did bring a warm to Steve’s guts that had nothing to do with the temperate or the weather. “What is not portrayed in _The Son of Man_ of Magritte's and why?”

Steve made Bucky lose his shirt over a green apple, which was the item that obscured the face of the man in said painting. Bucky got to his feet and it took a lot of Steve’s self-control not to step a bit to the side to watch Bucky take off the sweater he was still wearing inside out. Only that he didn’t. Instead of his sweater's hem Bucky’s hands found the belt of his pants.

“What’s the answer?”

“It’s a green apple.”

Steve wanted to call him out and point out that Bucky had said something about mirroring Steve, but abandoned the idea quickly. Bucky hid something for a reason. Steve had a couple of suspicions but didn’t want to make Bucky feel pressured. That Bucky agreed to the game and its terms was itself a tiny miracle. The question must have shown on his face anyway since Bucky answered the unasked question. “You’ll not make me lose my sweater over a fruit.”

Feeling a blush spreading on his cheeks, Steve turned his attention to Bubbles, who was still sprawled on the couch watching them lazily.

“How many are portrayed in Henry Matisse’s _The Dance_?”

That was the point where Steve lost his pants.

“ _The Persistence of Memory_ ,” Steve hesitated as he was contemplating if was, in fact, remembering this right.

“Dali.”

“What?”

“Salvador Dali.”

Steve giggled, suddenly remembering a quote from an episode of the West Wing. “No, that’s not the answer to the question. But did you know that Duchamp is the father of Dadaism.”

Bucky gave him a questioning look, obviously not sure where this was going.

“So,” Steve continued, barely able to hold in another snicker, “Duchamp is the dada of Dada.”

There came a groan from behind the easel. “You didn’t just do that?” As Steve couldn’t hold in a laughter it was followed by a pained. “You did. I can’t believe what poor taste you have.”

“Look at me, I’m twenty pounds of skin and bones. Sarcasm and bod jokes are my only defense.”

Bucky shook his head but was grinning nonetheless. “Come on, ask your question. Before I lose faith in you completely.”

“Okay,” Steve had to clear his throat in order to choke his giggle. “How many melting watches are there?”

Bucky took a moment to think. “Four.”

“Wrong. Three.”

“No. Four,” Bucky insisted.

With the way Bucky was worrying his bottom lip he clearly held in a snarky comment. Steve reached towards his phone. “Let’s check then.” Steve pulled the drawing up on Google while he made his way over to Bucky to present him proof of his victory. Steve watched the way how Bucky’s nostrils flared as he was taking in a deep breath, because there were, of course, only three watches dangling in the heat like molten camembert. Bucky’s posture was stiff as he finally moved. He didn’t even get up as he peeled the sweater off his body. From where Steve stood he had an excellent view of everything happening.

Bucky’s white muscle shirt rode up to reveal smooth skin and defined muscles on Bucky’s stomach and sides. It was suddenly definitely way too hot in here. Steve had known Bucky to be in shape, the shoulder-waist ratio had suggested as much plenty of times, thank you very much, but seeing it from up close was a mind-wrecking thing to watch.

Forgetting about the reason why he had wanted Bucky to undress in the first place – not that would only be one reason why it was a good idea - Steve had forced himself to remember decency and made his eyes snap towards Bucky’s face hastily, only to be met by steel-grey orbs already resting on him. Steve’s eyes traveled lower and stopped as he finally saw what Bucky had been hiding all along. There were scars on his arm, or rather one scar. Bucky’s skin was one patch of red, rosy and angry looking colors were covering his upper arm and parts of his lower arm, explaining why only one of his sleeves had been pushed all the way to his elbow.

“I’d need you to stand over there,” Bucky stated with a dry voice, pointing towards the spot in question.

Steve felt himself nod. He hadn’t had wanted to stare, had promised himself he wouldn’t, but he did. “What happened?” The question was shy and quiet, barely above a whisper. Steve could see Bucky grinding his teeth, before Bucky turned his attention back to the canvas stubbornly, dismissing the question and the topic altogether.

“Why is there a river in the background of the _Mona Lisa_?” The question came out neither harsh nor cold and still, it felt like a door had been slammed into Steve’s face.

In Steve’s mind, there were the most absurd and horrible scenarios playing itself, one more horrifying than the other, how Bucky had come by such extensive scarring. Feeling numb he made his way back to where he stood before, placing his phone onto his pants on the couch. There was no room in his head for the game they had been playing. Steve didn’t even remember the question he had just been asked. “Sorry, I- I didn’t mean to stare.”

“It’s okay.”

The hard line around Bucky’s mouth told Steve that nothing was okay. It took Steve another moment to realize that it had been Bucky’s choice to take off his shirt.

“Really,” Bucky repeated himself as Steve was wrapping himself in an invisible blanket of silence, “it’s okay.” Steve stood there like he had just by accident killed Natasha’s cat. As much as he had wanted to believe otherwise, Bucky hadn’t been prepared for the way Steve was staring at his arm. “You know the answer?” he asked after the silence on Steve’s part stretched further.

“What?” Snapping out of his thoughts Steve blinked at him, shifting awkwardly where he stood.

“The river. You know the answer?” Bucky was ready to bolt but felt himself glued to the chair at the same time. When Steve had brought up this little game of his Bucky had panicked. Then he had told himself that it would be okay. This was his body, this was his skin and he would have to live with it. Bucky had told himself that he would be hidden behind the canvas that Steve would not see his scar up close. The idea of taking off his sweater had been somewhat terrifying and tempting at the same time as the heat was killing him and he had made a fool of himself already as he was running around with it inside out. As if he was still not old enough to dress properly.

“I have no idea.”

Bucky didn’t look up at the soft words, but focused on the lines in front of him, concentrating his attention on creating what he saw in his mind, what Steve helped him bring in shape. “Defiance”, he explained. The word hung delicately in the frail silence of the room.

“Da Vinci wanted to mess with a river. He tried to steal a river with Niccolo Machiavelli. He tried to divert it in order to steal … an invention, I think.” Bucky kept drawing, his eyes never left the canvas while he was filling the room with soft spoken words. “They failed. Machiavelli left politics and da Vinci put the river into the background of Mona Lisa.” He leant back a bit to get a better view on the proportions he had just drawn. “That’s the tale.” As Bucky looked up he found Steve looking at him with something he hadn’t ever wanted to see in anyone’s face ever again. Pity. “Would you mind taking off your glasses?”

Steve did as he was asked, placing them on the couch as well, where the rest of his things was. “Is that something you learned during classes?”

“I spent a lot of time in the hospital and I liked reading before.” Bucky looked up and found Steve nodding. The blond still looked pained, as if he was suffering, holding back a lot of burning questions and actively looking at everything but him. Making a pause, Bucky straightened his back, making his spine crack in protest. “I can pull my sweater back on if you’d feel more comfortable.” Bucky tried hard to keep his voice easy and his face straight.

Steve’s face on the other hand crumbled. “Oh shit. No. No, please don’t. I’m sorry, I- I didn’t want to make you feel…”

“Awkward?” Bucky offered.

“Yeah.”

“You wanted to see what’s beneath. You did. Are you sorry you made me strip?”

“What?” Steve looked as if he was honestly horrified by the idea Bucky had. “Not at all, I just- you don’t want to talk about it and that’s okay. It’s not my place to ask. I’m just sorry I made you feel uncomfortable,” Steve’s voice had become quieter the more he had spoken. “I’ll happily watch you take the rest of your clothes off.”

Bucky studied Steve for a moment. The blond was looking in his direction and squinting occasionally. “How much do you see without those glasses?”

“I- What?” Steve mustered a stiff laugh. “Oh wow. So you’re finally identifying yourself with my case and I won’t even be able to appreciate it.” Steve all but threw his hands in the air before his brain caught on with his mouth. “In a purely artistic fashion of course, because I mean, look at you.”

Bucky wanted to brush aside the comment, certain that it was nursed by pity and the strong need people usually felt when seeing something they couldn’t fix to make the problem appear…smaller. Then, he remembered what Steve had said about art, about not finding his muse or motivation, about not finding the strength to do it and about not finding his way back to it.

“Then let’s try something. As you’re an artist yourself and you still owe me since you haven’t lost your last piece of clothing,” Steve had missed to lose his boxers, “you can pay your debt by drawing.” Steve looked at him confused, so Bucky clarified. “I want you to draw.”

“You?”

“If you like. I mean, there’d still be Bubbles if you’re more into fluffy things.”

Steve made a face at, what Bucky imagined, was Steve picturing the tedious process of drawing hair. Then Steve’s face fell. “I think I’d rather strip.” The voice that was too deep for the delicate body of his came out hoarse. “My mum was the last thing I drew and I haven’t drawn anything else since. I don’t really feel comfortable with the idea to be honest.”

Shit. It sounded familiar. Bucky had known this, he was almost certain he was. “Okay.”

“It sounds stupid, I know.”

“It doesn’t”, Bucky hurried to say. “It doesn’t,” he repeated much slower and more careful.

“It’s not like I’m holding onto her, it won’t bring her back and my memory of her won’t disappear just because I’m drawing something. It’s only that … I don’t know. Maybe I’m holding onto her.” Steve shrugged and licked his lips.

Bucky studied his model before looking at the outlines he had carefully done in order not to leave an imprint on the paper. He didn’t know if it had anything to do with the topic shifting towards Steve’s emotional mess of a life instead of his own, but Bucky found himself not minding his current exposed state. Maybe it was just like Nat had said: it’s like ripping off a patch, first it pinches a bit but you soon forget the pain was there.

“You wanna see what I have so far? Then you can use your expensive education to criticize the shit out of me if you want.”

That got him a smile from the blond. It didn’t reach his eyes but it was genuine nonetheless. “I’d love to. If you’re really willing to show them and not because you want to cheer me up.”

Bucky got up and rolled his eyes. “If I’d want to cheer you up I’d resort to bad jokes with poor punch lines since that is what gets you going.”

“Those are … brilliant.” Steve was speechless. Some of them were unfinished and most of them were only sketches but what he saw was breathtaking. Steve had gathered from the painting Bucky had on display the last time he had been over how skilled and talented Bucky really was, but those pieces were taking it to a completely new level.

In the lines of the face of a young woman, Steve could see the familiarity. “She’s beautiful.”

“That’s Rebecca,” Bucky said. Of course, beauty ran in the family.

“She’s in a coma, right?” The picture he was looking at was an unfinished pencil sketch. It showed Bucky’s sister resting in a bed of roses. She looked like a fairy princess. The petals were colored in a very light, almost translucent blue. Bucky had not lied when he had said that blue was his favorite color. The color of the sky was found quite often in his paintings. Often, it was a dark hue mixed with an intense red and silver. Bucky had put a lot of effort into the details, the hands of his sister were folded on her stomach. The detailed painting was well shaded and even the blue veins at the back of her hands were there, clearly visible under her pale skin.

“Yeah.” At the hoarse and breathless sound Steve turned his head. Bucky’s face was closed off yet his eyes gave away the pain he felt. “She was unconscious when I got into her room. There was too much smoke and flames everywhere. I dropped her while I was trying to get us out over the balcony.” It still didn’t explain how exactly Bucky got the scars but Steve hadn’t had to ask. The scars looked as if they came from a severe burn and they looked painful, though not as painful as the memories Bucky was reliving if the anguish in his grey eyes was anything to go by.

“I’m sure you did everything you could.”

They went through a couple of different sketches from buildings and sketches from body parts, mostly hands and silhouettes.

“You really like bodies, do you?”

Next to him Bucky was scratching his head. “I guess so. The anatomy is easy to master, but what really fascinates me is to capture movement, to make them fluid as if they were about to…just crawl out from the paper.”

Steve got to a dragon whose scales were worked in with amazing detail. It was fierce looking, with the stunning and intimidating eyes of a superior predator. “Okay, as long as _that_ stays in there I’m good”, Steve laughed.

“That’s Smaug. Becca loved _The Hobbit_ , she always made me read it to her when ma and dad refused to because she had been old enough to read it by herself. So I read it to her. I couldn’t refuse her anything.”

“It was one of my favourites too,” Steve admitted. He had spent his whole live with a pencil or a brush in his hand or with his head in a book. “And this is really good. I find hardly anything to criticize you for.”

“You can keep it, if you like. But only if you come by the campus and tell my professor what you just said.”

At that Steve laughed, disrupting Bubbles in her sleep, making her growl under her breath before jumping off the couch. “Am I also gonna see what’s on there?” Steve pointed towards the easel.

“I- yeah.” Bucky was clearly hesitant to show it to Steve.

“You don’t have to.”

“I’m just not really sure if you want to see that.”

“I do,” Steve simply decided and put the drawings on the coffee table before getting up from where they sat to make his way over to the easel in still nothing more than his boxers and his glasses. What he saw was everything but what he expected. The lack of words made Bucky clearly uncomfortable.

Bucky had buried his hands in the pocket of his jeans, which were hanging low on his hips since he had lost the belt early in their game. “You hate it.”

“No,” his own voice sounded breathless in his ears. “It’s just not what I expected.” The outlines showed Steve, or at least a man Steve suspected to be him, since they shared a similar physique, but the man portrayed looked...old. His face was weathered and his posture showed the weight of the years he had had carried around. There were a couple of lines hinting on what the background would be.

“I want to portray time. Starting from birth or youth in the morning to old age in the evening.” Right, there had been something with light or contrast, Steve wasn’t entirely sure what it was.

“Are the other two pieces done yet?” Steve didn’t remember if he had ever asked.

“One is. Kind of. The background isn’t done. Not all of it. I want to do the background of all three in one go.”

A key suddenly turned in the lock and Bubbles padded from where she was hiding towards the apartment door to greet her favorite human. Bucky took out his phone to check the time, his forehead wrinkled. It was already about 6 p.m.

“Oh shit. I have to go!” Steve rushed to the couch and was just hopping on one leg in order to get into his pants as Natasha walked in with a bag of groceries in hand.

“Hey boys,” she greeted with the seductive voice of hers, pausing to take in the happenings in her apartment. “I should have called ahead.”

“I have to go anyway,” Steve replied. “I forgot that I promised Sam to meet him at six.” Suddenly pausing Steve turned towards Bucky. “We didn’t get anything done. If you want to, I can come around another time if you…” the rest of the sentence hung unspoken in the room. _In case you need more pictures_ or _in case you want to see me again because I’d really like to see you again, soon_.

“That’s okay,” Bucky said, not paying any attention to Natasha who had just offered to disappear into her room and make herself sparse. “I have everything I need.”

Tugging the t-shirt over his head and saving his glasses from falling off Steve then flopped on the sofa to tug on his socks. Bucky was fishing cash from his wallet. “Don’t,” he said. “You won me. Remember?” Steve winked. “And since I didn’t keep to my word the next one is for free as well.”

“Uhm.” With his wallet in hand Bucky obviously didn’t know what to do with the statement.

“So, next Sunday?”

“We’re not in town next weekend,” Natasha supplied from her room where she was supposedly minding her own business.

Both of them looked towards the small hallway before looking at each other. “I’m not in town next weekend,” Bucky spoke after her, looking as if he wasn’t sure why exactly he wouldn’t be in town next week.

“Oh.” Steve couldn’t really hide his disappointment. “I’m free during the week as well, apart from a couple of lectures? How about you call me? If you want to.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said as he escorted Steve to the door where Steve slipped on his shoes and grabbed his messenger bag. Steve stood in the open door and turned around to face Bucky, a genuine smile on his face.

“Thank you for- for showing me,” he said, taking in the flabbergasted expression on Bucky’s handsome face, obviously not sure to what Steve referred.

Then he turned away and went back to the couch without a word only to return with a single piece of paper in hand. The drawing of Smaug. “If you want it that is.”

Beaming Steve took it. “I do, thanks!”

There was something entirely different to Bucky, Steve realized. Under all those layers of broodiness and grumpy expressions was a soft soul with a warm and loving heart, someone smart, witty and sometimes shy. Steve felt himself fall a bit more for the stranger he posed naked for. “Call me,” Steve said, standing in the hallway, not wanting to go.

“I will,” Bucky promised.


	7. Chapter 7

The thing with plans was no matter how hard one tried, they ultimately changed. Time was constantly running out on something. There were deadlines for assignments, departure times of a train, the time limit one had left to turn in a paper, the numbered days until graduation, the day when ones hourglass finally ran out of sand.

An hour passed quickly, a week just as quick and within the haze of the daily routine and the habitual rush of life, even months resembled fleeting moments.

On his way through the library his phone rang in his pocket, demanding its owner’s attention and attracting the disapproval of his surroundings. Uttering an apology under his breath he stopped at a desk, banging his foot on a chair and hissing in pain. Dropping his papers onto the table, he sent his pencil rolling about while he tried to retrieve his phone clumsily to silence the call.

Only when he read the caller ID Bucky froze in place and stared at the screen, until an annoyingly cleared throat somewhere next to him made him snap back into reality. The pencil cluttered to the floor, the sound drowned by the carpet and Bucky’s chirping mobile device. The gallery was calling. The fucking art gallery, where he had been able to display two of his paintings, was calling him. This only meant one thing.

“Hello?” Bucky sounded breathless and someone somewhere behind him was actively scolding him and throwing a bunched up paper at him, missing by a mile.

“Mr. Barnes? This is Miranda calling, from Sheiman Art Gallery. I have great news for you.”

Bucky was high-fiving himself right then and there, not caring who he would possibly disturb after this awful summer in New York. He sold a piece. Bucky sold an actual painting.

Autumn had colored the leaves and brought a brittle wind, soothing the singes summer had left. Which was about the only good thing in Bucky’s life at the moment, if you asked him.

“Bow to the one and only, amazing J.B. Barnes,” Bucky demanded with pride swollen chest as he dropped a six-pack and a bottle of sparkling wine on the counter, together with a box of pastries of this amazing place close to campus.

“What’s the deal?” Natasha managed to sound bored, snuggled up on the couch in an oversized sweater that looked suspiciously like one of his own and with Clint currently massaging her feet. “Finally got laid.”

Bucky flipped her off. “I sold a painting.”

That had Natasha on her feet within a heartbeat, flinging herself at Bucky and wrapping him in a bone-crushing embrace. “Oh my god! That is wonderful!”

“I know!” Pride and excitement were rushing through his veins, making him feel light-headed and drunk.

Clint clapped Bucky on the shoulder, hard enough to make him cough. “This is great man! So you’re famous now?”

“Ha! I wish. Long way to go. But I sold a painting. Can you believe it?” Dancing back towards the kitchen unit he grabbed two beer. “We’re going to celebrate this.”

“We were celebrating yesterday,” Clint complained.

“No, _we_ have been celebrating today. _You_ had been moping how you’d miss us as if it was us going to another state to start an actual job.”

Clint looked offended and teary-eyed at the same time. “You’re the one leaving the fucking continent!”

“Guys!” Bucky barked, continuing with a much calmer voice and with hands raised, still holding the beers. “Relax. It’s still the same … you know, solar system.”

Clint groaned and Natasha snickered as she pulled Clint back towards the sofa. “You’re always so sensitive when you’re hungover.”

Bucky passed along the beer to Clint and sat on the coffee table. “So,” he said. “This is it then, huh?”

“We’re becoming-” Clint started.

“Don’t say _grownups_ ,” Natasha threatened, nudging Clint with her foot. “You’ll never grow up.”

Bucky sat and wondered how on earth he would manage without them as he watched them bicker. Clint was starting a job in Chicago a few weeks after graduation. Natasha would be in France even before Thanksgiving would roll around, making the world her stage. He himself would stay here, in New York, graduating in about a year and with one sold painting to his name.

Natasha was wiggling her foot in front of Clint’s face to prompt him to continue his massage while she held his beer, stealing an occasional sip. This was it, this was the time where each of them started their own life, stepped onto their own paths and focused on their careers.

One thing Bucky couldn’t wrap his head around was, how the two of them hadn’t ended up together. Especially after the summer they had had.

After the third session Bucky had had with Steve, they hadn’t continued on their working relationship. They had rescheduled a couple of times for their fourth and final meeting. First Steve was ill again, down with the flu once more. Then Bucky had visited his aunt with his dad for her 50th birthday. Between all the papers due, Bucky simply hadn’t been able to find the motivation and energy – not even his prescribed mood elevators had had done the magic trick. If Bucky found time, Steve was out of town. After that more and more things had come up and they had never managed.

They had talked on the phone a couple of times. Steve had asked about Bucky’s progress on the pictures, Bucky had asked Steve about his future plans. Turned out that Steve had made his mind up what to do with his life. All Bucky had learnt was that Steve had managed to get into Brown. How he had done that on such a short notice was beyond Bucky, but all he had gotten from Steve was that it been just a couple of lucky circumstances. One of those circumstances was that Steve had had left New York only a couple of weeks after they had met last in order to get settled before summer school started. It was some sort of orientation to help Steve to get into his newly chosen calling.

They had coffee once when they ran into each other at campus, wandering about in the park, talking about god and the world and about nothing at all. Bucky had been coming from a photography class and was taking pictures of his surroundings during their spontaneous coffee date. Various shots had included Steve, who’d been indulgent and untypically quiet.

By the time the next pub quiz had rolled around, Bucky had extended his invitation to Sam once more, as Sam would remain in the city and, by what Bucky had thought at that point, so would he and his friends. Sam had actually shown up, alone. He had told Bucky that Steve hadn’t felt too well and that had been the end of that story. Sam hadn’t shown up to the next pub quiz and Bucky had stopped calling Steve.

Bucky’d finished his assignment in time and had been left with not only his triptych but with a three-part painting that featured Steve like Bucky had photographed him. Steve had been standing at the window, blanket wrapped around him, illuminated by the warm rays of the sun. The snapshot hadn’t done Steve justice, so Bucky attempted to do so with his hands.

Over the weeks of summer, Bucky had been busy working two different jobs to support his family, had gone to therapy and had spent every available moment at the hospital, begging his sister to wake up. Bucky had also been drawing a lot. At the subway. In the park. Next to his sister. At a café while waiting for Nat. In front of the television. He’d been drawing buildings and people, had drawn couples in love, children playing, a bird flapping his wings and the face of a blond man he should not draw. Not anymore. Not since said blond had told him with his radio silence that there was nothing connecting them.

“James,” Natasha prompted softly.

Snapping out from his memories Bucky shook his head slightly, focusing on the present and meeting the concerned gaze of his friend and landlord with a soft smile. Bucky watched how the tension drained from her shoulders as she settled back into the cushions again.

“She was asking where the pizza is.”

“That was what you were complaining about, not what I was asking, Clint.”

“I thought we could go out. Celebrate. Have a couple of beers, some nice burgers with lots of fries.”

“And a shake,” Nat added and Bucky shot a smirking glance at Nat.

“Or two.” Chocolate milkshakes had always been her poison.

“You boys have to stop going all sentimental on me.” Natasha swatted Clint’s hands away as he attempted to brush an invisible tear away.

“How did you even manage to sell any of your doodlings anyway? Did you threaten someone?” Clint mocked good heartedly.

Natasha groaned in annoyance, rolling her eyes.

“You remember the professor that gave me an A on your painting?”

“I do.” Why Clint was as proud of this painting as if he had been the one that had done it.

“One of his former students runs this art gallery. You know, fancy stuff everywhere.” Clint shot him a look as Bucky attempted to sell him as stupid as they came. Bucky continued unfazed. “So he had this exhibition planned. With a musical theme and had asked his old professor if there are students willing to participate. Turned out some people really likes my craft.” Bucky grinned, proud and still high on endorphins. Clint listened tight lipped at that point. Bucky suspected that it was Clint’s subconscious mind tickling with him with a distant memory. “And I got in.”

“We even went to see it,” Nat helpfully provided.

“Where you puked your guts out in the alley next to it.”

Suddenly Clint’s face lit up. “Ah, was that the night where we were at that seafood-truck at the street food festival?”

“Who had nothing to do with you downing a dozen shots,” Bucky indicated.

“But could explain your major blackout,” Nat jumped in helpfully.

Bucky looked at Natasha then. She was watching Clint with a seemingly indifferent expression. It had been the night Clint had told Nat that he wanted to become a man she thought worth loving – and then had forgotten all about it.

They were on their way back home, Clint and Bucky swaying a bit and snickering, as Nat linked her arm with Bucky’s. “You’ll take care of him, until I come back, will you?”

“Bubbles?” Bucky groaned. “Yes, Nat. I told you. About a hundred times. I will feed him and clean his box. But I will lock him up at night. This cat has it out for me!”

Natasha giggled and patted his arm. “Of course he has. But I meant Clint.”

Bucky looked over to where Clint was on their right, turning his deaf ear towards them as he was rambling on about how he met this magician, slurring his words slightly. A story both of them had heard about two dozen times already. “You know he’s not exactly around the corner from me either.”

“I know. But he’s closer to you than I am. And when I come back in a year, I want my two boys waiting for me.”

Bucky slung his arm around her shoulder, tugging her close and kissing her red hair. “You know I will”, he promised her crimson curls. “Although I have to remind you that I might be famous by then. And will most likely still be gay.”

\- - -

 _Famous_ might had been over exaggerated, though after years of struggling Bucky did manage to live off commissioned work, selling the occasional piece and was acting more or less as a permanent guest lecturer at the university that had gifted him with his degree what felt a million years ago. There had even been a couple of smaller articles where his name was mentioned. It was not international fame though and he was far from being the Picasso of his generation.

“You still don’t think about travelling the world and living off that borrowed fame of yours?”

Bucky laughed, tugging the woman in his arm closer and pressed his cheek against her dark hair. “You know, I did travel but I like the comfort of my own bed a lot better than any of those flophouses, thank you very much.”

Joy came more easily to him as the last years had lifted many sorrows from his shoulders and heavy shadows from his soul. Life was not perfect, far from it, but with the woman he loved pressed into his side and hugging him around the waist, whilst viewing his declaration of undying and unconditional love immortalized on canvas, life was as good as it could get.

Little did Bucky know that fate would come knocking at his door and brought back to him what time had stolen away.

“I told you he’d be upset about it.”

“But that’s the point, Steve. You get them to show a reaction to get the real ammo.”

“This is not The Good Wife, Sharon.”

“I’d make an excellent Good Wife.”

Steve barked a dry laugh. “Sure. What am I in this horrid vision of yours? The diplomat husband cheating or his campaign manager?”

“I’d like to think of you more like the one that got away. College sweethearts.” Sharon winked at him playfully.

“You know that this means I’d have to die, right.” At that point Steve didn’t even bother to remind her that they had ended things in an understanding. They worked much better as friends anyway.

Sharon shrugged, flipping her blond hair over her shoulder. “And you’d be the most loved by the audience.”

“I always liked the campaign manager.”

“So much that you don’t even remember his name,” Sharon called him out.

“You’re missing the point. This is not a TV show. Stark gave us a scope of action, gave us room for a deal. And you blew it.”

“Technically, the husband blew the gardener.”

“And he is our client so we kind of have to make sure that he gets away with the fortune. No matter who blew who when.”

“I know. But it got the job done. And it was fun. Admit it.” Sharon’s heels were clicking on the pavement of the Manhattan sidewalk as they made their way back to their law firm, the sound moving away from him, taking Sharon’s voice with him. “Besides, he got this old hag of an ex-wife of his riled up and she spilled a bunch of her dirty housewife-secrets, which are in fact very-“

Sharon’s voice faded and the sound of the traffic disappeared. His world was suddenly limited to the lightheaded feeling of disbelief and his own blood rushing in his ears. This was… an odd coincidence, which was what the logic part of his brain wanted to tell him.

“Huh,” Sharon’s voice came from somewhere close by. “Looks an awful lot like you. Just young and feminine and … sinful. Wow. I remember it differently.” Sharon tilted her head as if another angle would spur her memory.

Steve had stopped as a familiar looking picture in a display had caught his attention. Thing was that it looked familiar not because he’d spent hours staring at copies of the original masterpiece, but because he was looking at a much younger version of himself.

“That’s because it is.” Steve’s hoarse voice left his throat raw. Swallowing hard he scanned the canvas for a signature. He was staring at a version of Vermeer’s _The Girl with a Pearl Earring_. The signature of the artist was some scrawl he couldn’t decipher, though there was a small note next to it. It read: J.B. Barnes. A name that was completely unfamiliar to him. It had to be a coincidence.

Steve managed to get his bearings and took a step back once he realized that he had his nose almost pressed against the cool glass of the shop window. The display belonged to an art gallery. It read _Zeitgeist_. Returning his gaze to the display, he found a program being displayed as well. The grand opening was tomorrow evening, the theme was something about muses and inspiration. Steve couldn’t really make sense of it as he was still hung up as to why there was a painting of his boyish face being displayed to the sidewalk of lower Manhattan.

“I don’t know anything about this stuff, but I don’t remember that painting looking like-”

“This is not the original,” Steve interrupted her harshly, suddenly feeling agitated. “And this is not me,” Steve all but decided and forced his gaze away from the window. The gallery doors were closed, but Steve could see that the lights were on and that there were people moving somewhere, their bodies throwing shadows against the floor.

Steve told himself _No._ He had no time for this, had no energy for this. His job was what he had to focus on, his career, the opportunity Stark had given him with this job and with this million-dollar case. Art was still a sore topic, even after all these years, although Steve was not sure if it really was the art or rather the fact that he had given up on his passion and never had managed to get back to it.

“Are you alright, Steve?”

Art wasn’t something he didn’t really enjoy looking at anymore. He still appreciated the artist’s hard work, but it didn’t bring him peace and solace like it had before his mom passed, before he’d turned his back on his passion.

Making a decision he straightened his back. “I’ll be just a minute.”

Without waiting for an answer, Steve tried the door and found them open, leaving Sharon behind in the twilight of the autumn evening as he stepped into the art gallery. Over the door was a small bell installed, chiming a welcoming song that mixed with the low drawl of tasteful background music and hushed murmurs of two men behind a small front desk. The smell of dried paint and fresh wood greeted him like a long lost friend, folding around him like a well-worn blanket.

“Sir?” The voice belonged to a thin, dark-haired man with a heavy British accent. “May I help you?”

Looking around, searching and distracted, Steve mumbled an answer that didn’t quite make sense. His plan had not reached to what he’d do or say once he was inside the gallery. “Yeah. I was- the picture.“ There were more paintings on the wall in the front part of the gallery. They were tasteful and modern. Some fine arts, a few of them abstract. Distracted and at a loss, Steve turned his attention to the two men. One of them being pale and British, the other one wearing a suit his broad shoulders and huge biceps strained against.

“I’m sorry, but we are not open yet. The official opening will be tomorrow evening. Today is invitation only.” The staff member gave Steve a once over. Coming from a business meeting Steve was wearing a grey suit that would pass for the upper class, only that the label wouldn’t show the name of some fancy designer. Stark wanted his employees to look the part.

“May I ask for your name?” The man looked pained as if the thought that he’d have to ask Steve to remove himself from the scene hurt him physically.

“Are you the artist of that painting?” Steve pointed towards the display.

The Brit refused and just as Steve was about to open his mouth to ask him why his face was sitting in the display, the sound of rich laughter came from the backroom. Steve sidestepped the insisting Brit to follow the honey-thick sound. Rounding a corner Steve found himself in what appeared to be the main room. Walls had been built in to provide more space for the pictures and, oddly enough, photographs.

He didn’t take in the waiters dressed in white shirts and black vests, preparing champagne flutes to be served to art lovers later, which would be making polite conversation and would be strolling about the room to look at the work. Instead, Steve gaped at the walls. This was him. All over the place.

There were photographs in black and white of his face, his very young face. Steve stared at himself looking back surprised, stared at himself gazing away in the distance and smiling sadly. There were paintings as well in the mix. Paintings that portrayed people or a single person, paintings that didn’t portray any person but showed a scenery, a mood, an abstract atmosphere.

Steve felt like someone had dragged him out from his own body and made him watch himself looking at this whole thing. It felt surreal to stare at himself and have himself staring back at him.

He heard the British man speaking, insisting on something, but he couldn’t make out the words. There was a man in a black suit on the other side of the room. Something about him demanded all of Steve’s attention. His long hair was tied in a messy bun, the black suit jacket hugged his waist, as did the arms of a gorgeous woman, her figure highlighted by an elegant blue dress; her dark hair beautifully done in a complicated way.

The person in the painting they were standing in front of had his back towards the observers as well. It was an ethereal theme – Steve didn’t really look at it. His eyes were glued to the couple in front of it. Someone was putting his hand on Steve’s shoulder to escort him out, just as the stranger with the woman in his arm turned his head. Something in Steve’s head clicked into place.

“Bucky?” The word was out before Steve even realized he had spoken, loud enough for it to cut through the low murmur of the catering staff and the ambient music.

Steve watched as the stranger in front of him turned his head around fully. They stared at each other wide-eyed for a moment, taking each other in. He could see Bucky’s jaw drop as realization hit, could watch how shock crept onto those handsome features until finally horror bloomed on Bucky’s face. Complete and utter horror.

The woman in Bucky’s arm turned towards Steve as well, loosening her grip, but Steve didn’t see it. All Steve could see was how Bucky turned and – ran. Or rather disappeared into the back.

Acting on instinct Steve followed, leaving the Brit, a dazzled dark-haired woman in a blue dress and Sharon, who he hadn’t been aware had followed him, behind. The gallery turned out to have a back door that led to a small alley, narrow enough that a car would barely fit through it. The door banged against the brick wall as Steve rushed out.

Bucky had stopped a few steps into the alley. His back was still turned away from the door, but he wasn’t moving, as if he had suddenly forgotten that he had been running.

“Bucky!” Steve called out as soon as he laid eyes on him, panting heavily. “What the hell, man?”

That had Bucky flinching as if Steve’s voice had been a physical blow. Bucky turned around slowly.

“Is that-?” _Is that you?_ was a pretty dumb question. Of course it was Bucky. Steve would never forget those steel-grey eyes, this jawline of his, even though it was way more prominent now. Bucky stared at Steve, his face full of contradicting emotions. The more pressing question was: “Is that _me_?”

The look that crossed over Bucky’s face was something between pain and instant denial. “Hey. Stevie.” Bucky sounded hoarse and shaky, not answering the question at all.

“Bucky!” The woman in the blue dress called out, followed on her heels by Sharon. She eyed Steve suspiciously and rounded him as if to stand between them. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s okay,” Bucky ensured her, stepping closer to put a hand on her arm, squeezing lightly. His whole expression had changed. There was still shock and horror on those handsome features, but there was also affection. “Go back inside. I’ll be with you in a few.”

She threw a wary glance Steve’s way.

“Really, I’m fine. We know each other from… NYU.” The pause was small, but it was there. If the woman had noticed the lie she didn’t let it on. She looked at Bucky again before stepping aside haltingly. She gestured for Sharon to follow her back inside, leaving the boys to their business.

“So. How are you?” Bucky asked once they were alone. “You look good.”

Steve all but gawked. “How am-“ Taking a deep breath he tried to collect his bearings. “What is this?” Steve gestured towards the back door. Bucky looked over Steve’s shoulder.

“A gallery,” Bucky answered evasive.

Steve clenched his teeth. “No shit. But why is my face on those walls?”

Bucky wasn’t moving . He stood stone silent and met Steve’s eyes with an expression on his face as if he was expecting a punch.

Steve could do nothing but stare at Bucky. “Why?” He insisted, his hands were clenched into fists.

He could see how Bucky fought the urge to look away, to avert his gaze. Bucky licked his lips, drawing Steve’s attention towards them. “Have you read the invitation?”

“No.” Steve sounded way harsher than he wanted to, still too agitated by everything happening. “I saw the display.”

Bucky nodded once, slowly. “You like it?”

“I- it’s my _face_.” Fucking Vermeer’s Pearl Earring Girl was out there having his face on it.

Steve watched how Bucky pulled his lower lip between his teeth. “I like your face. I always did.”

That had Steve speechless.

Bucky cleared his throat and buried his hands in the pocket of his black suit pants, seizing the opportunity to guide the conversation onto less life-threatening territory. “You’re back in town,” Bucky superfluously assessed.

“I have been for a while.” Steve felt stiff and erratic. “Why is my face in there? On those walls?” He still felt on edge and Bucky denying him any straight-forward answers didn’t do his temper any favors.

“The theme is inspiration,” Bucky explained carefully, as if speaking the words gently would soften Steve’s anger. “The muse. It’s interesting what gets people inspired with how one little thing can open up a well of inspiration,” Bucky rambled. “My students actually came up with the idea to make it an exhibit.”

“Your inspiration,” Steve repeated expressionless. “Your muse.”

Bucky nodded slowly, looking away, embarrassed by the momentous confession.

“That was… years ago.”

“Almost seven I think,” Bucky agreed.

All Steve could do was stare. “I need a drink.”

At that Bucky smiled shyly, gesturing towards the open back door. “I have champagne.” The look Steve shot Bucky made Bucky shut up and take half a step back. “Or not.”

“I think I might need something stronger.”

Silence stretched between them, only disrupted by passing cars on the street and the clatter inside the gallery.

“Since you’re here,” Bucky said carefully, “I’d really like you to see it.”

“Oh really.” Steve’s voice filled the space between them with marble words. “You could have called. Sent an invitation.”

“I did,” Bucky sputtered quickly. “I called you. A couple of years ago. Your phone was disconnected and I didn’t exactly have your last name.”

Now it was Steve’s turn to stare at Bucky wide-eyed. He had lost his phone a few years ago, had gotten himself a new number then, since it had been way easier to avoid his shitty ex-boyfriend who would not stop harassing him. “Oh.” Steve instantly regretted his outburst.

“All I know is your first name. I didn’t even have your address,” Bucky spoke with his hands, threw them up in the air, gestured at Steve and the general surrounding as he was talking. It was the first time Bucky had really looked alive and almost fierce since Steve had set foot into the gallery. “Your mom’s name was Sarah. You were an art student. You grew up in Brooklyn. Your friend's name is Sam. That is all I had. Hardly enough to find someone to ask them if they’re okay to be-“

All Steve had been able to do was stand there and listen to Bucky rambling. The words knocked the breath out of him and suffocated his anger. Bucky had tried to call him, had tried to contact him. “To be what?” Steve asked, his voice husky.

He watched Bucky taking a deep breath as if preparing for something. “If you’d be okay.”

The disappointment showing on Steve’s face was apparently enough to encourage Bucky to say what he really wanted to say. “To be my muse. Because I couldn’t really get you out of my head.”

The two of them stared at each other. Steve couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. If he had known… he hadn’t. He had carried on with his life, determined get his life back on track. To find a way out of his pain and to find back to himself, to find his heart again. It had never occurred to him that Bucky might have really been interested in him instead of just his friendship.

There had been light flirting and Steve had been sure that there might was a chance that Bucky was gay.

“Bucky.” The soft voice of the woman in blue crushed the frail moment between them like the delicate petals of a dried flower. “The people are arriving and Dernier is here. We really need you inside.” She looked apologetic and gorgeous. Beautiful. So much for gay.

Steve had completely forgotten about the stunning woman Bucky had had at his side. Whatever slight chance there had been for them it was sure as hell not there anymore now. His eyes settled back on Bucky, who was still looking at the woman for another heartbeat before he finally nodded. “I’ll be right in.”

She looked at the both of them, obviously conflicted. Steve couldn’t blame her. He’d be conflicted as well if his bae was having a quarrel in a back-alley. Only that Bucky wasn’t gay, or wasn’t gay anymore or had always been interested in both sides of the gender spectrum.

“I should go,” Steve announced, straightening his back and tugging at his jacket. The suit suddenly felt uncomfortable and ill-fitting.

“Please don’t.” Steve’s heart skipped a beat at the pleading words. “Come inside. Have a look around. If you really hate it, then-“ Bucky didn’t finish the sentence.

Steve took a deep breath, contemplating if it was worth the hassle to go in there and make friends with Bucky’s girlfriend … or his wife for all Steve knew. He hadn’t really focused on Bucky’s hands to determine what kind of relationship the two of them had. Then again, Sharon was still in there and sneaking out the back was just not him.

“I can spare a moment,” Steve agreed reluctantly.

The smile on Bucky’s face was lopsided. It was forced and stiff and the grey of his eyes was too dim.

Inside Sharon was engaged in a conversation with the tall man Steve had seen in the front. With them was another man in his 50s, wearing a suit and with a moustache highlighting his narrow face, Steve didn’t know either.

“The man of the hour!” The words heavy with a French accent. The man with the moustache slapped Bucky heavily on his left shoulder, making Bucky flinch.

“Yeah yeah,” Bucky muttered.

“Guy’s, I’d like you to meet someone.” Bucky turned to the side gesturing Steve, who had hung back, to come closer. “Everybody, this is Steve.” Then he gestured towards the people he was introducing.

“This is Timothy, the owner of the gallery and the idiot who thinks my art is great.” The man with the broad shoulders reached out to shake Steve’s hand, almost crushing it.

“The muse in the flesh. Must be a thrilling thing to be the sole focus of creative attention.”

Steve didn’t know what to say.

“This is Jacques Dernier, my former art professor,” Bucky continued.

The French guy’s handshake was light, almost uncomfortably light. As if one shook a dead fish. “I suppose you have forgotten to add ‘the poor sap that taught you how to hold a brush”, Dernier added saucily in Bucky’s direction.

Bucky rolled his eyes and turned to wave someone over. His girlfriend appeared at his side, holding a champagne flute and looking as vibrant with life and stunningly beautiful as Steve had remembered her. “You have already met my sister. Rebecca, this is Steve.”

What was spoken then Steve didn’t hear. There was white noise all around him, blocking out the words that floated between them. His sister. His _sister_.

A hand on his shoulder made Steve snap out of his shock. It was Sharon’s hand. “Anything you wanna tell me?”

Steve gaped at her stupidly before his brain rebooted and reality came back to him. Sharon was referring to: the walls, or more specific their decoration. “Nothing I knew of,” Steve retorted dryly, not sure if he should be embarrassed or flattered about it. He settled for conflicted.

Next to him, Bucky was ducking his head, making himself small in order to disappear. Unfortunately, the world didn’t do him the courtesy of granting wishes and Dernier was just talking to him about something art related. Steve hadn’t paid any attention.

“ _That_ will give me the award for the best story at the next office party. Most definitely, Mr. I-don’t-do-kinky-stuff.” Sharon knew that she wouldn’t get any answers from Steve, which was why she turned her attention immediately towards the rest of the small group. Bucky was watching him and Sharon closely while listening to something Dernier kept going on about. “Spill it,” Sharon demanded.

“Kinky?” Steve repeated.

Sharon pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. “There is a nude. And it kind of looks an awful lot like you.” Sharon gestured at Steve’s everything.

He looked over her shoulder to where she had pointed and – oh no. Steve felt himself blush. Hard. There was definitely a lot of skin. Steve couldn’t bring himself to look at it too closely. What he could see was Bucky looking at him, panic and concern clouding the grey of his eyes.

Had the air suddenly been sucked out of the room? His lungs suddenly felt constricted like they hadn’t had in years and it was suddenly hard to breath. There was a hand on his arm, squeezing tightly. “Breathe,” Sharon muttered under her breath. “I’m sorry. I was just making fun of you. I mean the nude is real. But it’s not you…I think.”

Bucky was on his other side. The hand on the small on Steve’s back was burning through the thick layer. “Are you okay?”

“Yes!” Steve hurried, taking a deep breath and shaking off Sharon’s hand. Unfortunately, he also chased away Bucky’s touch. “I’m fine.” This was just a bit much to swallow. He shot Sharon a glare. At least she had the decency to look apologetic.

Rebecca handed Sharon a glass of champagne and nodded towards the room. “Why don’t I show you the art so that the two of them can catch up.”

Bucky shot her a grateful smile and Sharon leant towards Steve to fake-whisper something for everyone around to hear. “Let me know when there’s a chance for a law suit.”

Bucky managed to look handsome even when gaping. “A lawsuit?!”

“Don’t listen to her. She’s a lawyer.” That didn’t do much to calm Bucky. “I’m a lawyer. She is just messing with you.”

“So you’re a lawyer now. Long way to go from a brush to a … there is no real tool for a lawyer, is there.” Bucky didn’t phrase it like a question as he was guiding Steve towards the few scattered people.

“Just the law and righteousness,” Steve hummed. “So, your sister woke up.”

“She did.” Bucky’s voice was heavy with affection, the love he held for her bringing a light into his eyes. Steve wished secretly for someone to look at him like this one day. Like he was the most precious thing in the world.

They were standing in front of a picture Steve didn’t really want to spend too much time looking at. Not that the picture was awful, not at all. It was well done, very detailed and showed how much time, work and effort the artist had poured into it. It consisted of three pieces that matched to one huge picture and showed a younger Steve standing in a radiant, warm light. There was a lot of red fabric and it was kind of ethereal looking and Steve felt exposed and naked and he wanted the heat of the blush he felt creeping onto his face to burn him away, to make him disappear. Although as awkward the whole thing made Steve feel, it was also breathtakingly beautiful.

“This is… beautiful.” There were so many more words to describe what Steve felt and saw, but he found himself unable to speak them.

Bucky ducked his head next to him, smiling shyly at the praise. “Thank you.” Apparently it meant a lot to him coming from Steve.

“Lots of artistic freedom, though.”

“What do you mean?” They were standing close to each other, their shoulders almost brushing. It was the first time Steve realized that they were almost the same height now.

“I can see blond hair and pale skin, but I don’t really recognize myself in it.” Steve turned his head to look at Bucky only to find him looking back at him.

“That’s not what I see,” Bucky shared, looking at the painting. “I see golden hair and fair skin, a delicate young man embraced by the sun, who wears his heart on his sleeves and the sky in his eyes.”

Steve stared at him, speechless. “You make it sound like something beautiful,” he whispered.

“That’s because it is.”

**Author's Note:**

> See the amazing and inspiring art[ here](https://misspaperjoker.tumblr.com/post/162016953304/this-is-my-second-contribution-to-the).  
> Find me on [ tumblr](https://missgunst.tumblr.com).


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